Welcome to Writing Machine Academy
Our unique training courses are based on the Structured Writing Method, one of the world’s most advanced business writing methods.
Writing for Professionals
Writing is one of the most important skills in any office.Whether you write for marketing, pre-sales or general business reasons, Writing for Professionals will enable you to write more compellingly, clearly and professionally – and to do so faster.
Writing for Bids
Writing skills can improve an organisation’s bid win rate.Writing Machine’s unique Writing for Bids enables individuals and teams to write clearer, more compelling, professional, and far more competitive bid and pitch documents.
Training delivery options
Learn the way that suits you or your teamVirtual of physical classrooms; open courses or customised for your team; blended or eLearning-only.
It’s your choice.
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Available any time. Anywhere.
Online training is available across your organisation with our site licence or throughout the world with our cloud delivery. Classroom courses are available in the UK and parts of Europe.
Writing Machine’s Structured Writing Method
All our courses are based on our unique Structured Writing Method.
This is a process with four key stages: Objective Setting, Messaging, Structuring and Crafting.
What do you want to achieve? This is a critical consideration because all documents should be created for a known purpose. That’s why the Structured Writing Method starts with Objective Setting, as this can profoundly affect everything else that happens subsequently – from structure, to message, to tone of voice. It is also the logical place to start when starting most business activities (not just writing) as it forces people to identify where the value in a particular task lies.
Having worked out what you want to achieve the next logical question to ask is: what do you want to say? Every business document exists to communicate a certain message. The Structured Writing Method provides clear guidance on how to make such messages as clear, concise, compelling and, if appropriate, competitive as possible. (There is a special version of the course aimed at bid writers which includes focused guidance on messaging for executive summaries and bid questions.)
Architects often talk about ‘form following function’ and the same is true of documents. The next stage of the method, therefore, concentrates on how to create the right structure to appropriately deliver your message to achieve your objective(s). The course harnesses the power of Microsoft Word’s Outline View to help writers to rapidly, and more effectively, structure their writing. The bid version of the course augments this with lessons about the particular challenges of structuring executive summaries and complex bid questions. It also shows how to create storyboards to revolutionise the quality and efficiency of the bid process.
A key principle of the Structured Writing Method is that writing is the very last thing you do. After you’ve worked out your initial objectives, fine-tuned your messages and created the right structure for your documents, you will become a much more confident writer – and the documents you produce automatically become clearer and more focused. But it is clearly still important to learn how to improve the craft of writing itself. In this last section, the Structured Writing Method looks at matters of style such as how to write for skim-readers, how to engage a reader, how to write with clarity and how to write with authority. It also clarifies key areas of grammar and punctuation, and teaches techniques for proofreading.
Training you can trust
The Structured Writing Method was first created and refined over 30 years ago in order to train in-house writers. Since then, we have written for, and delivered writing training courses, to clients in the UK and around the world, in sectors ranging from technology, engineering and aerospace, to retail, health & safety, education, event management, food services, leisure and professional services.
‘The course made me aware of how easy it is to make mistakes.’
‘I will use the structuring every day.’
‘The Writing for bids course was spot on. People left the training with real skills and techniques that they could implement immediately, on a day-to-day basis. I’m very confident that our writers now have the foundation they need to produce clearer, punchier documents.’
‘Writing Machine’s Structured Writing Method has not only improved the way we write our reports, it has also changed the way we think as a business.’
‘I’m sure that the course will help me produce better quality, more engaging documents and challenge the status quo around content headings.’
‘The team has absorbed many valuable skills and techniques for creating and communicating clear and concise messages in their writing with greater confi dence. The interactive eLearning format is great. It lets each participant proceed at their own pace and the ability to re-visit course modules over weeks and months is a useful tool for reinforcing and refreshing the learning experience.’
“The training provided some great insights for the team who were inspired to put the learning straight into action.”
‘My writing will totally change.’
‘I have a clearer idea how to adapt sentences to ensure the messaging is clear.’
‘[The Structured Writing Method] will help me improve the way I structure my documents, which will also improve my efficiency and the time spent working on them.’
‘I thought I was OK at writing, I know now that I can improve a lot!’
‘I feel much more confident when starting to write now – I won’t dread it like I used to!’
‘It will make me question everything I write… Is it necessary? Is it clear?’
‘I feel more confi dent with my writing and starting with a blank page.’
‘I will think more about structure and headings to bring out key messages and themes.’
‘[I would recommend this course for]… new joiners.’
‘[I would recommend this course for …] ‘… anyone who writes.’
‘I think the course will help my communications to be clearer and more succinct.’
‘This course will improve my writing greatly and give me confidence in the future.’
