Grammar at Work

 

Objectives

Programme

Client comments

Open course

In-house course

Learning objectives

By the end of this course you will be able to:

• use grammar and punctuation accurately and confidently
• write in a clear and professional way
• feel comfortable with terms such as noun, verb, adjective and pronoun
• use sentences and paragraphs appropriately
• understand apostrophes
• use colons, semicolons, dashes and commas with confidence
• identify commonly misused and misspelt words
• spot mistakes and correct them.

Morning session

Introduction

• Why grammar and punctuation matter
• Why so many people are unsure of the rules

Grammar - group discussion

• Is grammar 'difficult'?
• What is myth and what matters?
• Changes in a living language - modern practice

Revision of key terms

• Nouns
• Pronouns
• Adjectives
• Verbs
• Adverbs
• Conjunctions

Common confusions with easy answers

• Collective nouns
• Subject and verb agreement
• Pronoun problems
• Misused comparisons
• Misused modifiers
• Faulty tense shifts
• Misused capital letters
• ‘That’ and ‘which’
• ‘I’ and ‘me’
• ‘Who’ and ‘whom’

Some myths

• Hanging prepositions
• Split infinitives

Afternoon session

Troublesome words

• Commonly misused words
• Commonly misspelt words
• Words with alternative spelling
• American v British spelling and usage
• Removing unnecessary words and phrases

Punctuation - group discussion

• The role of punctuation
• How punctuation affects clarity
• Differentiating errors from personal style

The pitfalls of primary-school rules

• Punctuation before ‘and’ and ‘but’
• The breathing comma
• Single and double quotation marks
• Other examples

A review of punctuation marks

• Full stops, sentences and paragraphs
• Commas
• Colons and semicolons
• Question marks
• Exclamation marks
• Apostrophes
• Quotation marks
• Hyphens and other dashes
• Parentheses and brackets
• Punctuating lists and bullet points

Further development

• Reference sources
• Post-course support

More information

The Grammar at Work course is available both as an open course and as an in-house course, which we would run at your premises.

For further details about open Grammar at Work courses, including pricing and a list of venues and dates of upcoming courses, click here. For more information about the in-house Grammar at Work course, click here.

Top of page...

“I found the whole course really useful. It will make a huge difference to my work.”

Clare Davenport
Account Director
Shelter

“All the areas I needed help with were covered. I liked everything about this course.”

Beatrice Ostad
Receptionist
Betfair

“The small group and the easy-to-understand format helped a lot.”

Emma Bretton
Assistant Product Manager
Engage Mutual Assurance

Summary

• 1 day
• 9.30am to 4.30pm
• Small groups
• Certificates
• A year of free support
• £395.00 + VAT
• 20% discount for registered charities

Venues and dates

Please call for course dates

The Grammar at Work course calendar

To book a course on-line simply click the date that interests you.

January 2018	February 2018	March 2018	April 2018
M T W T F S S	M T W T F S S	M T W T F S S	M T W T F S S
May 2018	June 2018	July 2018	August 2018
M T W T F S S	M T W T F S S	M T W T F S S	M T W T F S S

	Course will be held in London		Course will be held in Manchester		Course is fully booked
	Course will be held in Bristol		Course will be held in Exeter

Running the Grammar at Work course in-house

The Grammar at Work course can be run as in-house training anywhere in the world. If you have a group of staff who need the same skills, this option is convenient and cost-effective. It is powerful too, because we can provide a course that is specifically designed to achieve your objectives.

Tailored to your needs

The standard programme is available as in-house training, but you may prefer us to tailor it to match the needs of your staff and your organisation. Tailoring can include:

• adjusting the length of the programme
• adding or removing topics
• using your documents as examples and exercises
• taking account of your style guide and tone of voice.

Flexibility

An in-house course is fully flexible. Tell us what you want to achieve and we will work with you to design a course to match. Tell us when you would like to run the course and we will find a date that suits you.

Free support

Every course we run comes with a year of free support for each participant. We recognise that people do not think of every question on the day of the training. Our support service gives them the opportunity to ask their tutor an unlimited number of questions in the year following the course. In this way they continue to build their skills and confidence.

Ask us for a quotation

The cost of an in-house course depends on a number of things, including its length, its location and how much preparation we need to do. We can readily give you a quotation, so please contact us to discuss your needs.