May 21st: Successful Workplace Writing

by Jim Korth, PR committee

Have you ever done a great job on a writing project only to have the experience tainted by criticism of the writing style you exhibited in an email or other document associated with the project? All our writing, not just the content of our official work projects, is on view to our managers and colleagues and wide open to their criticism. Paula LaRocque has made a long career out of coaching good writing in the workplace. She is the featured speaker at our May meeting of the Lone Star Community speaking on “The Secrets of Successful Workplace Writing.” As technical communication professionals, our writing style is judged primarily by the actual content we produce. The overall professional impression we make is, however, influenced by all our verbal and

Thursday, May 21, 2009 6:15-8:00 p.m. Crowne Plaza Hotel North 14315 Midway Road Addison, Texas Reserve your seat now! Dinner (with reservations):   - $25 STC members   - $20 Students with student ID   - $30 Guests Program Only:   - $12 STC members   - $15 Guests Reservations after May 18:   - Dinner: $5 more   - Program Only (all): $15

written communications, including how we write electronic mail messages, letters, and memoranda. If we overlook the importance of professional style in our routine correspondence, negative impressions may influence others’ opinions of our formal work.

Paula LaRocque offers a fresh, sensible way to write clearly, swiftly, and successfully in the workplace. Her program will focus on developing a readable, concise, and polished writing style for any task. Her principles apply equally to electronic mail, reports, articles, and memoranda. Her guidelines promote clarity, accuracy, and brevity.

This session will include the challenges and effects of using proper sentence length, syntax and structure, and active and passive voice. Ms. LaRocque will also discuss how to avoid wordiness and redundancy, vague qualifiers, and the use of jargon, fad words, and cliché phrases and words.

Paula LaRocque has conducted writing workshops for hundreds of groups in the United States, Canada, and Europe. She was assistant managing editor and writing coach at The Dallas Morning News for twenty years and has been a consultant for the Associated Press and the European Stars & Stripes in Germany. Ms. LaRocque is also a columnist for Quill magazine.