Clear Writing for Engineers and Technical Professionals

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Disciplines: Management

Course Description

Information is plentiful in every organization. But how your colleagues communicate that information is critical. Engineers and technical professionals must continually turn information into knowledge to help their managers, colleagues, and customers understand often complex ideas and make educated decisions.

Clear Writing for Engineers and Technical Professionals is an intensive session that teaches practical ways to think clearly, organize ideas, and structure effective emails, reports, proposals and other communication.

During the workshop, participants will learn and practice a logical planning structure, collaborate on problem-solving exercises, write and revise assignments, and reinforce their skills through peer critiques.

Participants will also learn and practice techniques for constructing a logical and persuasive argument. Most often in business, people write to convince others to do something – change a process, take an action, or approve a recommendation. Through case studies, hands-on exercises, and guided assignments, participants will learn to think analytically and form an effective argument.

Persuasive Business Writing combines best-practice business examples with experiential-learning techniques, and interactive accelerated-learning principles to give participants practical, relevant skills they will use immediately to write clearly and persuasively.

Learning Objectives:

1. Clear Writing Essentials

The key to effective writing is to lose bad writing habits and embrace a new approach that focuses on the principles of clear analytical thinking, and logical, persuasive writing.

Participants will learn to:

• Read with purpose to uncover essential facts.
• Identify what is important and what to ignore.
• Develop a clear, focused message for their reader.
• Use the Clarity Principle – the single most important goal in writing.
• Understand four ways to define a specific writing objective.
• Create format, structure, and coherence – the basics of logical writing.
• Identify primary audience types and corresponding perspectives.
• Write to each reader’s perspective and achieve results.

2. Analytical Thinking

The most common mistake most people make is to begin writing without planning. In many oil and gas companies, business goals focus on time – getting things done quickly – rather than getting things done effectively. This approach nearly always leads to poor communication and unproductive relationships among managers, departments, regulators, and the public.

In this Analytical Thinking section of the workshop, participants will learn to examine their messages and topics, analyze options, choose a reader-focused strategy, organize their ideas, and communicate with purpose.

Participants will gain the confidence and skills they need to:

• Throw away the tedious, time-wasting writing habits they learned since childhood.
• Apply an approach to writing includes outlines and logical structure.
• Use words that more precisely communicate the writer’s meaning and purpose.
• Develop greater confidence and significantly increase their productivity.
• Participate in exercises designed to awaken their active-listening skills.
• Discover how to ask probing, insightful questions that uncover their reader’s perceptions.
• Define a clear, logical structure they can use in all their writing.
• Tap their own experiences and perspectives to develop a unique voice.
• Identify and correct common writing errors through editing and revision.

Participants will also learn to use these planning techniques:

• Plan, write, revise, edit – A 4-step process to help participants think clearly, organize their ideas, focus on their objectives, and take less time writing.
• Analytical questions – 29 questions to help writers look beyond the obvious.
• Brainstorming – A structured way to generate ideas and form logical connections.
• Outlining – A planning tool that helps writers organize their ideas and structure a logical document.

3. Analysis Exercises

Participants will complete a series of exercises designed to help them examine a situation thoroughly, and ask insightful questions.

Participants will learn to:

• Discover what every reader wants to know.
• Uncover real objectives for writing.
• Keep their words from obscuring their ideas.
• Address the 4 most common reader perspectives.
• Avoid jargon, clichés and pompous language.
• Structure their document’s format, style, and organization.
• Motivate their reader with a simple, easy-to-read style.

4. Assignment

Participants will analyze a scenario specific to the oil and gas industry, develop ideas, and produce a brainstorming plan based on the skills and techniques they learned.

5. Grammar & Mechanics

Participants will learn how to craft clear sentences, structure logical paragraphs, and eliminate embarrassing and costly writing mistakes.

• Sentences & Paragraphs
  • The Sentence - People use them every day, but don’t know what they are.
  • The Paragraph - The document’s rhythm section.
• Active Voice – How to focus the reader on who is doing what.
• Principles of Revision & Editing
• Style - How to set the right tone for their audience and purpose.
• Clarity - What’s clear for the writer is often confusing for the reader!
• Coherence – Simple ways to assess their document’s logic.
• Revision exercises

Through hands-on exercises, participants will examine good and bad examples of style, structure, word choice, and clarity, and practice transforming confusing writing into clear writing.

6. Persuasive Writing

Participants will learn the essential skills of persuasive writing. These skills will help them plan, structure, and write documents with focused objectives that achieve clearly-defined results.

Participants will learn to:

• Identify key issues and problems to be resolved.
• Develop a logical and persuasive argument.
• Test their logic using a syllogism.
• Create a seven-step proof line of their argument structure.
• Consider and address opposing points of view.

7. Argument Structure

Participants will learn how to structure an argument, introduce facts, support claims, and make clear recommendations – all essential to persuasive business writing. Using the ideas they generated in their brainstorming exercise, each participant will craft a persuasive argument outline.

8. Argument Exercise

Participants analyze a given business situation and create an outline for a persuasive argument.

Learning Level

Introductory to Intermediate

Course Length

1-2 Days

Why Attend

SPE’s 2012 Training and Development Study demonstrated that communication is one of the most sought after skills for a successful career in the oil and gas industry. John Sturtevant is the leading trainer on business writing for global oil and gas companies, and is a credible instructor for SPE.

Who Attends

This course is designed for managers, engineers, and technical professionals who write emails, reports, proposals and other business communication.

CEUs

0.8-1.6 CEUs (Continuing Education Units) are awarded for this course depending on course length.

Cancellation Policy

All cancellations must be received no later than 14 days prior to the course start date. Cancellations made after the 14-day window will not be refunded. Refunds will not be given due to no show situations.

Training sessions attached to SPE conferences and workshops follow the cancellation policies stated on the event information page. Please check that page for specific cancellation information.

SPE reserves the right to cancel or re-schedule courses at will. Notification of changes will be made as quickly as possible; please keep this in mind when arranging travel, as SPE is not responsible for any fees charged for cancelling or changing travel arrangements.

We reserve the right to substitute course instructors as necessary.

Instructor