(Available also for Customised Training by Duration, Venue & Fee)

Programme Description

For effectiveness in business communications, this course focuses on making managers to:

• Become highly skilled in the use of English Language
• Write memos, letters, reports, proposals excellently by presenting their contents with mechanical precision
• Organise their thoughts clearly before writing
• Know the techniques of outlining, drafting and revising their written messages
• Practice writing styles that are clear, concrete and courteous
• Pay attention to their spellings and punctuations
• Know the rules that guide the use of numerals in their written messages.

Course Contents

DAY ONE

Writing Guidelines

• Essence of effective business writing
• Planning the writing
• Organising thought before writing.

Prewriting & Planning

• Establishing purpose
• Clarifying readership
• Researching for facts.

Doing the Writing

• Word usage
• Common errors in our use of English by Nigerians
• Word economy.

The Business Writer’s Attitudes

• Simplicity and conciseness
• Confused words
• Outdated expressions
• Opinion words and expressions
• Look-alike words.

Common Writing Problems

• Problem with Clichés
• Parallelism problems
• Misplaced modifiers
• British v. American English.

DAY TWO

Attention to Grammar

• Verb exercises
• Noun and pronoun exercises
• Spellings
• Punctuations.
• Editing techniques
• Formatting the Writing
  • Style and tone
  • Paragraphs
  • Headings.

Letters

• Salutation
• Body of letter
• Complimentary closure.

Email Guidelines

• The recipients
• Keeping it short
• File attachments
• Plain texts.

Writing Minutes of Meetings

Minutes   – what it is, what it is not

• The Importance of Minutes
• Types of Minutes
• Minutes Format
• Steps to Effective Minutes
• Qualities of Good Minutes.

DAY THREE

Types of Report

• Information/investigation report
• Progress Report
• Formal Reports
• Informal Reports
• SOPADA formula
• The “Need-to-know” v. “Nice-to-know” reports
• Executive Summary:
  • The Purpose of an Executive Summary
  • Main Stages and Techniques of Summarisation
  • Types of Summaries
  • Qualities of an Effective Executive Summary