QUALIFICATION - Advanced Certificate in Professional Writing & Editing

Train in Writing and Editing - professional training for writers

• Improve the quality of your writing.
• Evaluate and understand deficiencies in your own writing.
• Develop your skills in writing - understand different approaches, forms, and techniques of writing.
• Understand how to write in a manner appropriate to your target audience.
• Understand the role and scope of an Editor.
• Learn about the processes from  assessing a manuscript through to preparing copy for printing.
• Learn about collaborative working on projects.
• Study the processes involved in editing through to publishing in different media - in print and online.
• Undertake practical exercises that will familiarise you with the requirements of the publishing world.
• Tailor the qualification to suit your goals - whether you want to learn more about running a business, an office, or if you want to know more about marketing, specific types of writing (e.g. fiction, script writing, dramatic writing), writing a website (HTML), and much more.

Who is this course suitable for?

• Professional Writers wanting to improve and update their skills
• Amateur Writers
• Bloggers
• Writers
• Web development writers
• Content Editors
• Copywriters
• Marketing writers
• Article writers
• Teachers

This course is suitable for anyone wanting to build upon and improve their existing writing skills.

Modules

Note that each module in the QUALIFICATION - Advanced Certificate in Professional Writing & Editing is a short course in its own right, and may be studied separately.

Planning A Technical Document

We have all experienced the manual or instructional pamphlet that leaves us absolutely bewildered. It may be because the diagrams do not seem to match the text, the grammar is incorrect or ambiguous, or there is no clear, logical format. Such documents appear, and probably are, badly or insufficiently planned.

Planning your writing is vital. The backbone of technical writing is defining the problem and the desired outcome. Then, knowing exactly what the purpose of your writing is and understanding your audience, you can plan how best to achieve the desired outcomes. For one thing, you will need to determine a realistic time frame for writing. As the old adage says, ‘time is money’. Your employer will probably want you to also work within a budget.  

When planning, you will need to determine what research is required, and to plan a strategy for acquiring and analysing the research material. Then, you will need to plan how long you will need to write a draft, then edit your draft for flow, clarity, logical sequencing, and formatting that will make the document easy to read and visually appealing; then, how long will be required for proofreading (which may best be carried out by another person).

Creating a Technical Document

The five steps to creating a technical document are:

1. Research the document – gather information 
2. Plan – decide on the format
3. Write – create an outline and then write the first draft
4. Verify – check the accuracy of what you have written
5. Revise – amend the document before publication

Researching The Document

All documents require research. Even highly trained technicians writing documents directly related to their field need to carry out some research, for example, checking the demographics of their audience or double-checking specification data. Since many technical writers are professional writers, not industry-trained technicians, the research phase is imperative to ensure the document is accurate and usable. The writer needs to determine what research needs to be done so they can write a document suited to their audience, and they need to determine how they will carry out their research. 

Researching involves gathering as much relevant information as possible, sifting through data to get to the specifics, and then organising and analysing the data. Most writers use a range of information sources including expert technicians (sometimes called ‘subject matter experts’), product developers and marketers, and published literature (in journals, on the internet, reference books etc.), as well as their own first-hand observations or findings. 

Learn more through study, research, and practical exercises

Study the Advanced Certificate In Professional Writing And Editing from ACS. Enrol on this course and in addition to receiving quality course materials, you will benefit from guidance and feedback to your assignments from our experienced and highly knowledgeable tutors.

By choosing from a range of Elective Modules you tailor the qualification to your own goals and professional development.

The course is studied by distance learning and our online and eLearning study options mean that you choose where and when you study.

The course can be started at any time - you can enrol today.

If you have any questions or want to know more, please get in touch with us by -

Phone (International) +44 (0) 1384 442752, or (UK) 01384 442752, or

Email us at info@acsedu.co.uk, or use our FREE COURSE COUNSELLING SERVICE to connect with our friendly tutors - they will be pleases to hear from you.