Paul Lima - Toronto Freelance Writer, Copywriter, Media Interview Trainer, Writing Coach
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Harness the Business Writing Process
"I have heard nothing but good things about the writing process seminar you ran. You were one of our more popular presenters."- Cy Williams, Administrative Assistant, Ontario Association of Youth Employment Centres (OAYEC)

Studies show that effective writers spend 40% of their time planning projects, 25% of their time writing, and 35% revising and editing; inefficient writers spend more time overall on projects and tend to be less satisfied with the results. Why? They spend too little time planning and too much time tinkering. To become an effective and efficient writer, you need to harness the writing process.

Based on the book, Harness the Business Writing Process and fully customizable to meet your learning objectives, this workshop can be adapted for writing email messages, letters, proposals, reports or Web content. At the heart of the workshop is an introduction to the five-stage writing process:
  • Planning
  • Research
  • Outline
  • Creation
  • Revision/Editing 
The workshop includes questions you should ask, and answer, before you begin to write any document and shows you how to apply the writing process to specific documents you or your staff need to learn how to write. To make you a more effective and efficient writer, the workshop also includes practical, engaging and creative writing exercises. These exercises will help participants:
  • Focus on their purpose and audience
  • Strike the right tone
  • Determine research gaps
  • Create detailed outlines
  • Properly structure emails, letters, proposals and/or reports
  • Write one section at a time (for longer documents)
  • Avoid common spelling mistakes and grammar errors
  • Revise documents to make them as powerful and effective as possible.
Depending on length, the workshop can focus on any type, or several types, of business writing -- such as email messages, letters, proposals, reports, writing for the Web and so on.

Writing Process Participants Speak
"Since I attended your Harnessing the Writing Process seminar I have written two direct marketing packages and am working smarter and faster. By focusing on one task at a time, I no longer panic about what I haven't done yet. I'm also making more use of [outline] headings to structure my documents so that I spend less time skipping between points and getting frazzled. Thanks again for the valuable info!"
- Elizabeth Cockle, Communications Specialist

"You freed 1 Gigabyte of RAM. I was holding it all in and you had me pull this outline out of nowhere. Everything I need is down on paper. Now that I know what I'm going to say, I have brain power left to think about how I'm going to say it. It's all over but the writing, and the writing is no longer intimidating."
- Partner, Accounting Firm

This seminars is conducted at your office location and can be customized to meet your learning objectives. The seminar can run as a half-day, full-day or  two-day session. It includes theory, hands on writing exercises and feedback and ample time for Q&A. This seminar is also offered as a detailed email-based writing course. It is occasionally offered as public workshops - please check the current schedule.

Whether you want to discuss media training, writing workshops, writing or editing services, or communications consulting, the right words are just a click away.
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