This seminar offers tips to help people in the fire service make simple, subtle, and high impact improvements to their professional writing skills. It provides a glimpse of the potential damage a poorly written document can bestow on a writer’s image and professional development, based upon real stories and real reports. It also suggests manageable solutions to this problem.

The one-day session provides a fast-moving and lighthearted review of grammar. It shows weak spellers how to manage the problem so that they, too, can submit error-free documents. The seminar provides the rules and tools to help participants gain confidence in their own abilities and the know-how to actually improve their writing. Some benefits that participants can expect to gain include the following:

  • Increasing their confidence in workplace writing abilities
  • Increasing their competence in all writing tasks
  • Improving their professional images
  • Becoming stronger candidates in promotional exams

This basic class includes the following topics:

  • Techniques to overcome writer’s block.
  • A fresh look at and a fun review of basic grammar skills.
  • A painless review of punctuation.
  • A review of run-on sentences and fragments.
  • Tips for dealing with weak spelling skills.
  • Tips to help proofread and edit quickly and effectively.

This session works well when the group includes people who hold many different positions within the organization or region. When presenting to people who hold the same positions (investigators, officers, etc.) position-specific options appear under the “Essential Writing…” sessions.

Length of Session: One 6-7.5 hour session

Resources for attendees:

Participants receive a handout that can serve as a long-term reference, both for the content covered in class and with a list of resources that allow them to continue building on the lessons learned.