Advanced Grammar and Editing Course

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Master grammar rules and principles with this short course for writers, editors and business professionals.

In this one-day intensive course you will practise applying grammatical principles in different contexts. You will study parts of speech, sentence construction, writing bullet lists, punctuation marks, and revision of subject, verb/s and predicate. This is a supportive and collegial class where all participants are asked to contribute.

This course is intended as a follow-on to the Grammar and Punctuation Course: Fundamentals and/or the Editing and Proofreading Course. Enrolment in those courses is not compulsory to attend this course.

Aims

This course aims to empower you in your editing decisions, enabling you to bring any document to an acceptable standard for publication.

Outcomes

By the end of this course, you should be able to:

• confidently edit any document, thereby adding value
• identify a properly constructed sentence, and an improperly constructed sentence
• recognise when more than one grammatical solution to a problem is acceptable
• determine whether an editorial style choice is a mandatory rule or an optional convention
• alternate between being a writer and an editor
• prioritise ‘making peace’ with your reader with writing that is pleasant, effective, alive, clear and enduring
• avoid ‘making war’ with your reader with writing that is waffly, ambiguous and ridiculous
• introduce and maintain consistency of editorial style.

Content

This course includes the following topics:

• the four ‘registers’ of English: formal, informal, jargon and slang
• the differences between speech and writing
• the nine parts of speech
• the construction of English: phrases, clauses, sentences and paragraphs
• punctuation marks
• the three ways to set up a bulleted list
• editorial stylesheets: copy editing for correctness and consistency
• drafting and ‘invisibly mending’ any piece of writing to maximise its impact
• reducing the word count
• role playing both the writer and the editor.

Intended Audience

Aspiring and practising writers and editors.

Delivery Style

This class is delivered as a workshop and includes:

• tutor supervision of your sentence and paragraph writing
• interactive exercises
• group discussion and
• Q&A.

Materials

You will be provided with a course workbook.

Please bring a blue, red, green and black pen and an A4-size ruled writing pad.

Recommended Reading

Deb Doyle, Grey Areas and Gremlins: A Grammar and Punctuation Refresher, 4th edition.

This self-published text is available for optional purchase during the course from the University’s Co-op Bookshop ($50). It is intended as an additional reference for the material covered during the workshop.