Effective Writing for Impact Assessment (Wordsmith: 3 x 3h sessions-zoom)

Effective Writing for Impact Assessment - Jan 20, 27 and Feb 3

(Hosted by IAIA-WNC, Delivered by Wordsmith Communications)

Duration: three, three-hour sessions on Zoom

Many environmental professionals and technical experts don’t consider themselves to be professional writers. Yet the ability to communicate findings, risks, and conclusions clearly and persuasively is essential to completing assessments that regulators, government, affected parties, and the public can trust.

This workshop teaches a concrete step-by-step process to help you spend less time writing, create clearer technical documents, and gain confidence as a writer. You will learn how to:

· build clear, strong, evidence-based content

· write to the appropriate level of technicality

· structure assessments so they work for multiple audiences

· include the right amount of supporting information

· improve readability and accessibility

· write in a clear, concise style while maintaining technical precision

· learn to draft and review efficiently when multiple writers are involved

· avoid common problems with environmental assessments and other technical writing

The session is interactive with an opportunity to apply the principles live and ask questions. Participants will receive a reference manual, which includes many real before-and-after examples.

About Wordsmith

Wordsmith has been training workplace writers for 45 years. We work with a wide range of public and private-sector clients across North America, including the Canadian Energy Regulator, Alberta Energy Regulator, Government of Alberta, Government of Northwest Territories, and Verra. We teach professionals how to create clear documents from complex content, edit and draft documents, and help organizations improve their process for writing and reviewing.

The Approach:

We use lecture, activities, discussion, videos, and both individual and small-group work. Our exercises are excerpts from the client’s documents, so they are applicable, and we provide before- and-after examples to show principles in action. Participants receive a roughly 80-page takeaway manual and desk reminder.

Course outline

This workshop covers technical writing with a focus on effective environmental assessments.

Module One: Think deeper to write better

We discuss the common problems that plague technical writing and how to avoid them: documents that are too long and unnecessarily complex, confusing structure, weak analysis, hide-and-seek messages, and a writing and review process that takes too much time.

· adapting to the needs of different audiences and purposes

· how to measure the success of a document

· creating usable documents

· avoiding common pitfalls in technical writing

· communicating clear findings, analysis, risks, and conclusions

· a new writing process to build clarity and speed

· building strong analysis

· streamlining the collaborative writing process (and making the reviewer’s job faster too)

· structuring documents for readability and persuasiveness

Module Two: How to create clear, readable text

This module focuses on language. It teaches a clear, accessible writing style, which many technical writers struggle to develop. This is nuts-and-bolts content about conciseness, clear sentence structure, effective word choice, and avoiding confusion.

· internationally established principles for workplace writing

· translating specialized or technical content for a non-technical audience

· science-based tools to maximize readability

· how to write in a direct, reader-friendly way

· writing concisely on three levels

· using verbs effectively, including active voice

· structuring sentences for precision and power

· perfecting tone in a document

· writing persuasively

Module Three: How to review and edit efficiently

Most writers exert superhuman effort to get a document “right.” Despite this, many managers end up editing and revising in after-hours time. This costs too much time and frustration for both. This session gives writers and editors the tools to work much faster, more systematically, and more effectively. It also explains ways to divide up tasks between the writer and reviewer to make their collaboration smoother and more effective.

· editing more quickly and with less stress for both writers and reviewers

· all the best editing tips

· effective proofreading

· using peer review to give and receive constructive feedback, why it matters, and a chance to see it work

· formatting and designing documents to be clear, professional, and appealing

· a quick refresher of key grammar and punctuation rules

· how to make the organizational-level writing process more efficient

Online Writing Courses — Wordsmith Communications Consultants link for more information on Wordsmith Communications