Do you want to improve your writing skills?
Softext Publishing Inc. and Community-focus are sponsoring a series of free writing workshops to help you develop your writing ability.
These workshops will be valuable to you if:
- you want to write for on-line publications such as Community-focus.
- you want to wrtie for print publications such as magazines and newspapers.
- you want to write a better newsletter for your business or organization.
- you want to writer better letters to the editor.
- you just want to communicate better.
These workshops are intended to help novice writer develop their skill and experience what it is like to write for a publication. Sessions are being taught by well-known local newspaperman Jim Algie and Terry Welton, editor of Community-focus.
Writing Workshops are currently underway. The next sessions are at the beginning of May.
The workshop is divided into three sections as follows:
Class 1 - Objective:
To introduce the basic principals of good article writing. To learn the importance of building a strong lead and writing what you know.
This class will consist of two assignments. The first assignment will be in class and introduce the simple basics of writing a lead on a subject matter you are already familiar with. The second assignment will be a homework assignment and will consist of taking the basic principals learned in this class and applying them in order to create a brief news article with paragraph structure and a quote from another source.
Class 2 - Objective:
To build on the skills you learned on creating a good lead and expand into a full article with an inverted pyramid format. To learn the importance of brevity in news writing, the role of an editor and how to handle the revision process.
There will be an in class review of your homework assignment and a discussion of examples of articles that may or may not have achieved those goals.
This class will also consist of a homework assignment. You will take the basic article format you have learned and use it to create a new 200-300 word article about a subject you are passionate about.
Class 3 - Objective:
To learn and become more confident with standard writing techniques. Learning the difference between news articles and press releases and how to effectively write and use both. Learn how to use other style formats such as opinion and column formats. Become familiar with the basic principals of conducting an interview and subject research.
A review of the news article assignment and how to adapt the format to cover any issue.
This class will have an in class assignment where you will take your news article from the previous assignment and adapt it into a press release format.
Contact us to let us know you are interested and we will provide you with additional information. 519-371-2622 or editor@community-focus.com