Find this course by searching for: military writing training, military writing course, military writing seminar, military writing class, military writing program

Military Writing Training

Commanding Attention:

Commanding Attention: Writing for the Military

Available Formats

• One Day
• Two Days

Program Overview

When lives are at stake, clear communication is crucial. Jargon, wordiness, passive voice, and hidden main messages sabotage effective transmission of information.  In keeping with the military's most current standards for writing, this course teaches participants how to avoid the above problems while producing direct, brief, and well-organized texts.

Program Objectives

At the program's conclusion, participants should be able to:

• Explain what distinguishes military writing from other kinds of writing.
• Know when writing is the best communication method.
• Identify the seven style rules of military writing.
• Clearly present the main idea of a piece of writing in the initial paragraph.
• Organize written information in a logical sequence.
• Understand the connection between audience awareness and writer's style.
• Eliminate the passive voice, wordiness, and redundancy.
• Minimize word, sentence, and paragraph length without sacrificing clarity or substance.

The following outline highlights some of the course's key learning points. As part of your training program, we will modify content as needed to meet your business objectives. Upon request, we will provide you with a copy of the participant materials prior to the session(s).

Course Outline

An Introduction to Effective Military Writing: Why, When, and How to Write

This introductory discussion establishes the rationale for clear, concise, and carefully ordered information in military writing situations. Participants will learn the two broad purposes for writing: to inform and to persuade. Also, they will learn the seven elements of effective communication.

Discovering What You Really Want to Say: Finding the Bottom Line

The second unit is designed to show participants how to state the main point of any writing task they might encounter. By reviewing examples of unfocused writing and completing exercises that require clear bottom lines, participants will understand how good writing is directly linked to a controlling idea.

Making It All Make Sense: Getting Information Organized

Another component covers arranging information in a logical sequence. Participants will see how by placing their purpose at the start of a writing task they will have a main idea on which to base all other sentences.

Who Goes There?: Writing for Your Audience

As important as understanding what to say is knowing who the intended reader will be. Audience awareness impacts style. Included in this segment is information about how knowing an audience should govern such considerations as word choice, tone, and amount of detail to use in a writing task.

Common Errors: Recognizing and Correcting Embarrassing Mistakes

This section focuses on grammatical and spelling accuracy. With the knowledge that clarity and conciseness are key goals in military communication, participants will review such problematic issues as sentence construction, subject-verb agreement, passive voice, and frequently misspelled words.

Quick and Dirty Shortcuts: Effective Proofreading and Editing

It has been said that "what's worth doing is worth doing well." This is especially true of writing. This portion of the course covers proofreading and self-editing skills aimed at helping participants quickly eliminate unneeded words, arrange information logically, and correct careless mistakes before a piece of writing reaches the intended reader.

At the program's conclusion, participants will know the seven elements of effective military writing and appreciate the necessity for conciseness, clarity, and order in what they produce. They will review the kinds of writing tasks most frequently expected in the military and will understand the procedure for proofreading and editing.

Find this course by searching for: military writing training, military writing course, military writing seminar, military writing class, military writing program