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Efficient Writing

Course CodeAWR102
Fee CodeS1
Duration (approx)100 hours
QualificationStatement of Attainment

Write clear, concise text everyone can understand

 All writing should be clearly understood by the reader.

Whether you are dashing off a quick email to your workmates or preparing a complex business report, your writing needs to be clear, concise, and correctly spelt and structured. During this course you will learn the fundamentals of correct and efficient writing.

  • For people who wish to brush up on their writing skills, or obtain basic skills which they should have but did not develop properly while at school.
  • Develop confidence and ability to write better at work, at home, anywhere
  • Learn to write clearly and efficiently
  • Learn to communicate thoughts in the minimum number of words, and without any ambiguity.

Lesson Structure

There are 6 lessons in this course:

  1. Introduction
    • Scope of writing -where is writing used
    • What is effective writing
    • Good writing is direct
    • Good writing is objective
    • Variety is good in writing
    • Understanding human communication
    • The communication process
    • Types of communication (verbal, non verbal, etc)
    • Communication channels
    • Communicating efficiently
    • Writing for a purpose
    • Understand your reader
    • Content
  2. Basic Writing Skills
    • Parts of speech
    • Types of nouns -proper, common, collective
    • Plurals
    • Possessive nouns and pronouns
    • Types of verbs: regular, irregular etc.
    • Adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions
    • Common grammmatical errors: comma splices, fragmented sentences, dangling modifiers, etc
    • Sentence construction
    • Types of sentence: declarative, interrogative, exclamatory, etc
    • Sentence structure
    • Constructing sentences
    • Combining sentences
    • Expanding basic sentences
    • Adding modifying words, phrases or clauses.
    • Linking words or phrases
  3. Clear Wording
    • Introduction
    • Common causes of confusion: homophones, malopropropisms, etc
    • Ambiguity
    • Making meanings clear: Illustrative context, glossing, etc
    • Informative language
    • Persuasive language
    • Imaginative language
    • Other types of language: colloquial, formal, informal, etc
    • Simplicity
    • Building a paragraph
    • General guidelines for effective writing
  4. Concise Wording
    • Conciseness
    • Circumlocution
    • Condensing your writing
    • Common problems contributing to lack of conciseness
    • Active and passive voice
    • Condensing text: how to Precis
  5. Punctuation and Accuracy
    • Punctuation purpose
    • Semi colon, colon, dash, comma
    • Spelling
    • American or English spelling?
  6. Planning what you write
    • Business formats
    • Business letters
    • Planning what you write
    • Writing a media release
    • Writing an answer or an essay
    • Academic writing, verbs, quotations
    • Unpack the question
    • Research
    • Referencing

Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.

Aims

  • Define the nature and scope of writing.
  • Discuss the way written sentences and paragraphs are properly structured.
  • Develop an increased capacity to write clearly.
  • Develop improved conciseness in writing.
  • Develop improved punctuation skills.
  • Apply basic writing skills more efficiently in a range of situations.

LEARN TO UNDERSTAND SENTENCES – the starting point of writing

A sentence is a group of words that expresses a complete idea. It can be as short as “Hello!” or quite long, as this sentence is.  

Most sentences are made up of the following elements:

  • Words or groups of words that identify things, places, people or ideas;
  • Words or groups of words that tell us more about these things, place, people or ideas;
  • Words or groups of words that identify actions, acts of being or feeling;
  • Words of groups of words that tell us more about action.

 

These basic elements may be combined or joined into good sentences by using linking words or phrases. Their function is to connect parts of a sentence.

 

To summarise, the building blocks of a sentence are:

  • parts that identify or name things, states, actions or ideas;
  • parts that modify (tell more about) them;
  • parts that connect or link other parts.

 

To write correct sentences in English, we must organise these elements in certain ways. If a sentence is not correctly structured, it might be misunderstood or it simply may appear clumsy and amateurish to the reader. Therefore, correct sentence structure is very important.

 



Meet some of our academics

Adriana Fraser Adriana has been a professional writer since the 1980's. She was a regular contributor to Australia's Grass Roots magazine for more than a decade, and in the 90's wrote a biography of one of Victoria's pioneering women. She has contributed to newspapers, magazines and newsletters for decades, and seen hundreds of pieces of her work published across Australia and beyond. Today, she is a regular contributor to Home Grown magazine, and part of the stable of authors who work on developing ebooks for ACS publishing division. She has been a tutor with ACS since the mid 1990's and has also been contributed to the development of course notes for several different education institutions. Qualifications -Cert.Child Care., Adv.Cert.App.Mgt., Cert in Assessment and Training., Cert.Hort., Adv.Dip.Hort.
Rosemary Davies Journalist, Editor, Broadcaster, Teacher and Consultant for over 30 years. Rosemary is former gardening editor for the Weekly Times (a Weekly Farming Newspaper in Australia); and author of six books in her own right. She has written articles for many magazines across Australia, and has since 2008 worked as a tutor and freelance writer with ACS; contributing to books a range of genres.
John Mason John Mason is one of Australia's most prolific writers. He saw his first work published when at secondary school, where he worked on the school magazine. In 1973 he was writing a weekly column for his local newspaper and by 1975 he was a regular contributor to Australia's national magazine "Your Garden". John was engaged by Victoria's Dept of Youth, Sport and Recreation to write a book on Fun and Fitness Trails in 1978. In 1981 he saw two more books published (one in America, another in Australia), and commenced writing regularly for the Self Sufficiency Magazine, Grass Roots. John is a long term member of the Australian Society of Authors, the Garden Media Guild (UK) and the Horticultural Media Association (Australia). He has written or contributed to over 100 books, many published by international publishers and published more than 2,000 articles across a range of genres (Gardening, Education, Business, Farming, Fitness). In addition, John has contributed to and overseen the development of more than 600 distance education courses which encompass around 20 million words. He has been an avid photographer for 40 years, building a collection of over 100,000 images, which are used to illustrate his work. His marine animal photos are even used by Legoland in England, on their Atlantis ride! Writer, Manager, Teacher and Businessman with over 40 years interenational experience covering Education, Publishing, Leisure Management, Education, and Horticulture. He has extensive experience both as a public servant, and as a small business owner. John is a well respected member of many professional associations, and author of over seventy books and of over two thousand magazine articles.
Rachel SyersRachel has worked as a newspaper journalist for the past 15 years in a range of roles from sub-editor and social columnist to news reporter, covering rounds such as education, health, council, music, television, court, police, Aboriginal and Islander affairs, and agriculture. Her current role is Fashion Editor, features writer and features sub-editor with The Gold Coast Bulletin. She has co-authored a successful biography "Roma: From Prison to Paradise" about former prisoner-of-war turned yoga guru, Roma Blair, as well as freelanced as a writer, reviewer and researcher for Australian music and celebrity magazines such as WHO Weekly, Rave, Australasian Post and New Idea. Rachel has a B.Journalism.


Check out our eBooks

English GrammarGrammar is a tool through which we can enhance communication through writing (as well as speech). Grammar provides a coherent structure for the expression of thoughts and ideas. By following grammatical rules we are able to compose logical sentences that make sense to the receiver. This ebook provides a comprehensive yet easy to follow guide. 79 pages
Professional WritingHow many people dream about becoming a professional writer? Professional writing is any writing that you are being paid for. It can include fiction writing, a best-selling book, articles in a magazine, articles in a newspaper, blogs for companies, technical manuals, copy for catalogues, newsletters, text books, other academic material and so on. However, many people just write for sheer pleasure. A must read for anyone wanting to make money from writing. 63 pages
Creative WritingCreative writing is relevant for both fiction and non fiction, and in any place where you write, from business writing to technical reports and children's books. Writing that is creative will usually be more interesting, communicative and effective. Through this book you explore both how to be more creative, as well as how and where to use it.
Project ManagementLearn to manage any type of project, in any industry. Six chapters cover the nature and scope of project management, risk and uncertainty, maintaining control, interpersonal relationships, the end game, and golden rules. This is a very concise text - easy to follow, with much of the information presented in bulleted lists. 72 pages