Business Grammar for Busy Professionals

 View Dates & Sign Up ·  Print Brochure ·  Email Reminder ·  Bring On-site

Detailed Overview/Outline

What You’ll Learn
In one fast-paced day, you'll conquer all aspects of business grammar with this new approach to learning

• Grammar basics every professional should know
• Latest business usage standards for courtesy titles and nonsexist language
• Punctuation tips for crystal-clear communication
• Spelling tricks guaranteed to end guesswork
• Winning ways with wayward sentences
• Proofreading techniques the pros use to catch every error

Workshop Agenda
Out With the Old Business Communication Rules and in With the New!

• Still clinging to “old” business-writing/usage ideas? Professional examples of how modern written business communication should sound
• Why a casual, friendly tone is key to contemporary business communication
• Strategies for eliminating stiff, formal language and avoiding wordiness
• Understanding why concise communication is imperative today, whether you’re writing a formal report or an e-mail
• A look at once-ironclad grammar and usage rules that have been relaxed
• Most-often misused words in business documents, including words that don’t exist

“Must-Know” Grammar Basics for Blunder-Free Writing

• Image-crippling mistakes to avoid: grammar blunders professionals most frequently make
• What a misplaced modifier is and how it can wreak havoc with your meaning
• A simple way to make sure your subjects and verbs agree – guaranteed!
• That’s up to you and I or that’s up to you and ME? How to choose the right pronoun
• Singular or plural: tips for sidestepping the glaring errors most people miss
• Handy grammar resources that will provide answers to even your trickiest questions

Smart Ways to Rev Up Your Sentences - and Polish Your Professional Image!

• How to use active verbs and voice to communicate more powerfully
• Wake up your readers by slashing adjectives and dumping unnecessary adverbs
• Tips for using varying sentence patterns and sentence lengths to express your ideas
• Less is more: “how-to’s” for trimming the fat from your documents
• Pointers for adding zing to your written communication
• Why your first draft should never be your last draft: editing “musts” for concise, clear writing

Handy “Cheat Sheets” for Capitalization, Numbers and Abbreviations

• The 10 Commandments of Capitalization for business communication
• Rules for capitalizing professional titles and names of things
• Guidelines for tricky capitalization situations, including product names, jargon specific to certain professions and more
• The Rule of 10 for spelling numbers and expressing them in figures
• When – and how – to abbreviate and when to spell it out

Punctuation Made Easy for the Semicolon-Challenged!

• Punctuation mistakes that are instant credibility killers – ones you’ll never again make!
• Avoid “comma-itis” by knowing when a comma is essential
• Easy ways to keep semicolons and commas straight
• The drastic difference between a dash and a hyphen – and when to use them
• Correctly using apostrophe-“s” or “s”-apostrophe to keep your meaning clear
• When (and why) to use parentheses
• Understanding when you need quotation marks and how to use them with other punctuation
• Punctuation rules that were made to be broken and when it’s a good idea to break them

Secrets of Goof-Proof Spelling

• A list to keep at hand from now on: the 100 most-often misspelled words in business communication
• 5 golden spelling rules every professional should memorize
• Is it “affect” or “effect”? Memory association tricks to help you keep commonly confused word pairs straight from now on
• “Occuring” or “occurring”? The handy rule for adding word endings
• Hear are example of why you can’t depend on spell-check to get your spelling write all the thyme
• Resources to check for the correct spelling of the newest words in our ever-evolving language

New Business Usage Standards: R.I.P. to “Dear Gentlemen”

• Guidelines for handling courtesy titles in business communication
• Fresh, new options for salutations in business correspondence
• Nonsexist alternatives guaranteed to help you steer clear of offensive language
• Solutions to gender-based pronoun problems
• Is it “senior citizens,” “the elderly,” “older adults”? Red-flag words and terms that could be considered insensitive to certain groups – and nonoffensive alternatives
• Pet phrases and outdated words that need to be put out to pasture
• Words that are never appropriate in written business communication

Proofread Like a Pro to Catch Embarrassing Errors Before They “Go Public”

• Are you proofreading or editing? Why it’s important to know the difference before you start reading
• Tips for proofreading quickly without sacrificing accuracy
• Visual tricks that will help you catch hard-to-find errors such as duplicate words and omitted letters
• The secret to spotting your own typos and grammatical errors
• How to proofread numbers with 100 percent accuracy every time
• A proofreading checklist that will serve as your “safety net” so you can rest easy, knowing you’ve caught every error

WORKSHOP BONUS

Grammar Guide Becomes Handy Desktop Reference!

Stumped over a grammar question and can’t get a document out the door until you know the answer? You’ll never again have that problem, thanks to the desktop reference guide you’ll receive free as a participant of this workshop. This user-friendly, soft-bound guide contains the business grammar and usage basics you’ll learn, plus dozens of other tricks, tips and techniques for error-free written communication. Available only through National Seminars Group, this information-packed tool will help you continue to hone your skills long after the workshop is over. Expect it to become a well-worn resource you’ll refer to again and again for fast answers to tricky grammar and usage issues

Program Hours: 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Registration begins at 8:30 a.m.

Lunch: Lunch is on your own.

Cancellation Policy: If you cannot attend a workshop for which you are registered, you may send a substitute or receive a credit memo toward a future workshop. If you cancel your registration up to five business days before the workshop, your registration fee will be refunded less a $10 enrollment charge.

Sponsor Background:
National Seminars Group, a division of Rockhurst University Continuing Education Center, Inc., is one of the nation's leading providers of continuing education. Each year, we provide more than 6,000 seminars in the United States and Canada, and in our 14-year history, more that 5 million professionals have participated in these programs.

Besides offering a full range of training skills to all professional levels through our one-day and two-day seminars and conferences, we also offer highly-acclaimed books, audiocassette, videocassette and CD-ROM training products for individuals, teams, departments or corporate reference libraries.

Since 1991, our affiliation with Rockhurst University, a highly acclaimed four-year university, ensures our commitment to providing lifelong continuous-learning opportunities. We're certain the combination of continuing education with academic excellence gives you the best and most innovative approach to fulfill your continuing education needs.

Cancellation Policy:

If you cannot attend a workshop for which you are registered, you may send a substitute or receive a credit memo toward a future workshop. If you cancel your registration up to five business days before the workshop, your registration fee will be refunded less a $10 enrollment charge.

Get updated when new dates are added for this seminar.

Get a free personalized recommendation from our experts!

Questions? Please call us Toll-free at (877) SEM-INFO.