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Introduction

Welcome to this course Writing for work—Purpose and planning. Your workplace relies on good writing to support decision-making and accountability. It's not enough for your documents to be well written, they must have good content as well.

This course is about developing that content. It looks at reader expectations, and how to meet those expectations by planning your document, and having a clear purpose, relevant messages and a strong call to action.

Learning objectives

After completing this program, you will be able to:

• plan production of a document
• develop content that is relevant to your reader.

You might never meet your most senior executives, but everything you write supports them, and your entity will be judged by the quality of its writing. You can’t write too well.

While some workplace writing is routine, many documents address complex topics that require research, analysis and a position. These documents might recommend actions and decisions to their readers, or they might communicate those decisions to affected parties. These documents include briefs, minutes, business cases, reports, letters and emails.

Regardless of which type of document you are writing, they all need a structured approach to their development. This course provides you with that structure.

Course outline

This course comprises four sections:

• Planning. Good planning is essential to every work activity, but is often overlooked when we write. We will show you how to plan the process of document production.
• Purpose. Every work document has a purpose. If it doesn’t, why are you writing it? This section looks at how to define the purpose of your document.
• Key messages. In this section we show you how to decide what content should go in your document, and just as importantly, what content to leave out.
• Call to action. Your document should drive your reader to action, and the words which do this must be clear and assertive. We will discuss how to find the right words to direct your reader.

Most people take around two hours to complete this course. You will receive a course certificate on completion.

Course materials

Each section includes videos, text, and downloadable resources.

Activities and quizzes

There are several activities in this course. These are a good way to confirm your knowledge of the course content. Once you submit your answers to an activity, scroll back to the top of the page to check your results.

Comments, questions and feedback

Each section has a space for comments and questions. We can't promise to answer every question, but we will do our best.

At the end of the course, we will ask you to complete a survey. The survey is anonymous and will help us improve the course.

Next section

When you are ready to start, click complete and continue at the top of the screen. This will take you to the next section.