Training Bulletin Issue 50

How to wright awful

Wear sick of banging on about how to wright good sew this thyme where gone tell you how to right bad. After all, bad is good, Michael Jackson said so so how could we passably go wrong.

To start with never bother with punctuation nobody nose how to use it properly so why should ewe bother its disappearing sew lets speed it on its weigh. And same thing for grammar its just a lowed off rules people made up too drive you mad with. As long as writers spell checks his work its fine. Four instants, theirs no spelling mistakes any wear in this article.

Say what ever you knead to say and as long as its all they’re the readers smart enough to work it out fur herself. The important thing is too get it down in paper or even in computer or whatever. To make curtain you do not miss any thing rite it up as it occurs too you so you no you’ve got it all. After you sent it its not you’re problem any more its there’s and its not your problem if their not smart enough to work out what you meant. If they really want to now they’ll go over it until they get it!!!

 

No, really – we haven’t all stopped taking the little pills. Being deliberately awful is quite a difficult thing to sustain. Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to be unintentionally awful. Little bits of awful can crop up in your writing very easily without your realising it. It can be a bit like suppressing moles in your lawn – you hammer one down and another rears up out of the corner of your eye, rather like this unfortunate mixed metaphor.

If you set out with the best of intentions, for example, to stop using clichés in your writing, sooner or later you take your eye off the ball and have to concentrate on what you’re saying. You don’t have time to worry so much about how you’re saying it, especially if you’re in a hurry and trying to do too many things at once. So at the end of the day, when all is said and done, your resolution is as dead as the dodo.

Assuming you want to improve your writing, what can you do about it? Rather than get stressed about all the things you need to remember, a sensible – and workable – approach is to try to focus on one thing at a time, until it becomes second nature.

Principles of good writing

This year’s Plain Words desktop calendar is designed to help you do just that. Each month, we present one basic principle of good writing. The picture on the calendar is a visual clue to, and reminder of that principle.

January’s hint was to keep your writing short and we had a cartoon of a lawnmower to remind you of this. We suggested you try to keep your average sentence length to between 15 and 20 words. Pay attention to your paragraphs as well, trying to avoid having them more than about seven lines. February’s picture is now up.

Each month, you can go to our website and click on the picture of the month. You will see a brief explanation of what the picture means and some suggestions on how to put that principle into practice. For the rest of that month, every time you glance at the calendar, the picture will remind you of one thing you can do to your writing to improve it. Concentrate on just that one idea for a month and it will become second nature by the time you are ready to move on to the next month’s.

By the end of 2012, your writing will have improved because you will have spent a month practising each of 12 easy techniques to make it clearer and more focussed.

If you did not receive a calendar, please email us at to request one. We only have a few left, so will post them out on a first come first served basis. Remember to tell us your postal address!

Our training courses also cover these principles, going into them in more detail and offering you practical ways to implement them. Find out more about them by calling us on 01235 60 30 22 or email

Public course schedule

Follow this link for the dates of our public courses.

One-day courses are either £495 or £395 + VAT per person

Two-day courses are either £850 or £750 + VAT per person.

One-to-one consultancies cost £850 + VAT for one day or £500 + VAT for half a day, held at your premises.

We also offer private group courses at your premises. Please call call 01235 60 30 22 for details.

How to book

To book, call Abi on +44(0)844 445 7743, or use the booking form.