Use this two-day advanced workshop to continue understanding and applying English grammar and punctuation. You will discover and apply ways to solve common problems in written English and learn some of the trade secrets of professional editors. Using a list of the standard ‘hard-copy editing’ marks, you will work with other participants to identify errors, correct sentences, justify your corrections and understand when more than one solution is acceptable. Make yourself indispensable at work as someone who can confidently prevent embarrassing errors from occurring in your organisation’s written communications.

Course Content

• Choosing to make ‘peace’ or ‘war’ with the reader
• The five stages of the publication-production process: writing, editing, design, proofreading, and printing and/or uploading
• The standard marks that professional editors use to edit hard copy (on paper)
• Subject, verb/s and predicate
• The nine parts of speech
• 33 parts-of-speech exercises
• Identifying the parts of speech in a paragraph
• The four registers of English: formal, informal, jargon and slang
• The differences between speech and writing
• 25 construction-of-English exercises
• The punctuation marks, including an exercise in identifying hyphens, ‘ens’ and 'ems'
• 25 punctuation exercises
• Solving common problems to do with editing instead of, or as well as, grammar and punctuation

Course Delivery

Hands-on workshop.

Course Outcomes

Participants will:

1. understand the finer points of grammar and punctuation
2. develop an enhanced vocabulary to discuss aspects of grammar and punctuation
3. be able to justify a range of alternative corrections to their own writing and anyone else’s
4. understand when a correction is more to do with editorial input than ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ choices
5. know when to bend, break or keep a rule
6. understand the difference between a rule and a convention
7. be able to prevent embarrassing errors from occurring in written communications.

Suitable for

This more advanced workshop is suitable for people who write, edit and/or proofread documents in a business or educational setting. The target audience is people who wish to advance in their publishing or communications career having acquired portable skills in various registers and styles of written English.

Before the course

It is recommended that participants will either have completed the one-day course Grammar and Punctuation Fundamentals or have a sound understanding of the basic principles of English grammar and be reasonably fluent in the English language.

Reading

• Deb Doyle. Grey Areas and Gremlins: A Grammar and Punctuation Refresher. Fourth edition, including answers for exercises. Self-published text-workbook. This is available for optional purchase on the day of the course for $50.
• Style Manual: For Authors, Editors and Printers. Sixth edition. John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd. Canberra, 2002.
• Elizabeth Flann and Beryl Hill. The Australian Editing Handbook. Fully revised and updated second edition. John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd, 2004.
• Malcolm Beazley and Grahame Marr. The Writer’s Handbook: Grammar, Punctuation, Usage, Style. Second edition. Phoenix Education, 2001.
• The Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary. Fourth edition. Oxford University Press, 2004.
• The Macquarie Dictionary. The Macquarie Library, Sydney, 1981.