Plain English
PROGRAM PURPOSE
To enable participants to write clearly, correctly and precisely by providing them with:
- clear writing guidelines and approaches;
- the confidence to adopt a new writing style; and
- opportunities to apply and discuss the guidelines -and to discuss the results of applying them.
The Course is relevant for all types of legal writing.
TRAINING STRATEGIES
A mixture of the following training strategies to be used to keep the course interesting, topical and relevant:
Presentations by a professional specialist.
A series of short briefings, workshops, and exercises conducted by an international expert.
PROGRAM LEADER
Andrew Levy, BA, LLB, M App Sc
Course presenter, Plain English workshops
Andrew is a lawyer and plain language consultant with Words and Beyond Pty Ltd. Words and Beyond is an internationally recognised expert consultancy in making business, legal, and related documents clear, accurate, and easy to use — and in training people to communicate clearly. Its clients include 4 government bodies, 8 public listed companies, 6 major national law firms, the Labour Organisation of the UN, and the European Central Bank. Andrew spent 10 years at a major national law firm and now provides plain language training, rewrites documents and advises on communication, cultural change programs. |
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PROGRAM CONTENT
Introduction
Introduce one another, outline course, consider our various audiences and purposes. Rewrite a short document together on the white board. Establish the extent to which writers’ ingrained habits lead them to write in a way that is less clear than it could be - and free writers from those habits.
Clear language: words and sentences
Interactive session on "how to make sentences clear". Focus on using sentence structures that research shows readers are likely to find easy to process.
Reader focus
A reader focus exercise in pairs that shows how we are inclined to write in a way that reflects our approach to a topic rather than the reader’s approach ... and how to adopt a reader-focussed approach.
Logical structure
The principles of good structure and a method to help achieve good structure, including an interactive exercise on the whiteboard.
Basic design
An outline of key techniques to make it more likely that a reader will start reading your document, continue reading it, and enjoy reading it.
Major group exercise on the white board
An interactive exercise that summarises the day.
Major individual exercise
Each participant is handed a page or so of text to rewrite and present to the group. Each participant receives a different type of text from a different document. The task normally takes an hour or so. In the final session, the participants present and discuss their work. This exercise is the key to the participants acquiring the capability to write clearly and applying that capability when they write. It’s also fun.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
The learning outcomes of the course are:
- participants are equipped with a set of guidelines and methodologies that help them to make their documents models of clear communication - whether those documents are letters, contracts, court documents, reports, proposals, marketing materials etc;
- participants have considerable practice in applying those guidelines and methodologies;
- participants have the confidence to abandon any bad writing habits they may have and replace them with plain-language guidelines and methodologies;
- participants know why clear communication is an essential part of being a lawyer of the highest standard and of having a client focus;
- participants are able to creditably promote plain-language;
- participants believe that plain language is worth the effort; and
- participants enjoy communicating clearly.
PLAIN ENGLISH WORKSHOP
| Fee: | $650.00 (includes GST, refreshments and course materials) |
| Time: | 8.00am – 6.00pm |
| Dates: | TBA |
| Venue: | Sir Zelman Cowen Centre
Level 2, 295 Queen Street
Melbourne
(entry via Little Lonsdale Street)
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| Enquiries: | Phone: + 61 3 9919 1810 or
Email: laura.kretiuk@vu.edu.au |
Last reviewed:
18/09/2007
