Get fresh perspectives and insights into the actionable approaches needed to build back smarter after inflation. Be inspired to transform your organisation while delivering profits.
Get fresh perspectives and insights into the actionable approaches needed to build back smarter after inflation. Be inspired to transform your organisation while delivering profits.
Get fresh perspectives and insights into the actionable approaches needed to build back smarter after inflation. Be inspired to transform your organisation while delivering profits.
Professional communication
Business writing and storytelling
Take a “tools, not rules” approach to master writing for business. Explore the psychology, craft and purpose of writing with a focus on the choices writers must make, from words, phrases and metaphors to sentences and paragraphs and how to structure a document. You will learn how to persuade and inform, to write to deadline and to engage a diverse audience. Covering reports, memos, social-media posts and presentations, you will develop your skills to become a more effective and productive writer.
About the programme
This course will enable you to gain clarity about what you have to say, why and to whom, and to reflect critically on your own writing. It will show you how to write clearly, concisely and authoritatively while avoiding jargon and clichés. Grammar is demystified—avoiding time-wasting dos and don'ts, in favour of practical steps that develop better writing habits. You will work on a writing project, moving through an iterative process to craft a piece of work that embodies the eloquence and analytical rigour for which The Economist is known.
To find out how our courses can impact your organisation with a customisable course structure tailored to your business challenges and goals, click here
This course was excellent in helping me better understand the art of writing. The system it uses to help a writer understand planning, structure, delivery and editing is straightforward and packed with tips. I wish I learnt this a decade ago!
Policy communications
Programme modules
Learn tools to become a more effective and productive writer. Develop a reflective approach to writing and receive guidance on starting to write a piece.
Explore how to gather materials, use facts and figures accurately and informatively, and structure information into paragraphs to achieve clarity.
Examine the strategies that shape style and content to fit the purpose and suit specific audiences: writing to explain, persuade or entertain requires different approaches and words. Included in this module is a short history of English vocabulary that emphasises The Economist’s approach to using plain language to deliver information clearly and concisely.
Think critically about the overuse of certain terms in business writing and learn to craft meaningful metaphors and analogies that explain technical phenomena with clarity and elegance. Distinguish between the rules of grammar that will help you write better sentences and the time-wasting rules that you can safely ignore.
Visualise data clearly, accurately and compellingly. Learn when and how to use data to support your writing and identify the main data-visualisation pitfalls and how to avoid them.
Learn how to turn a first draft into a polished document and reflect critically on your writing as well as the work of others. Evaluate the original purpose of your writing, and assess what needs to be reworked, cut, compressed or clarified.
Programme benefits
This course is for anyone wanting to present complex information clearly and with impact, regardless of the type of document or audience. It will enable you to:
Become a time-efficient writer with greater impact and clarity
Develop confidence in communicating your ideas
Present data in a clear and compelling way
Course leaders and contributors
Get exclusive insights from The Economist’s team of correspondents and editors, who share their expertise through specially-crafted articles, infographics, animations, videos and podcasts.
Teaching will be enriched by group discussions with students from many types of organisations. Larger class discussions will provide access to an even greater range of global viewpoints. Assignments and case studies are designed to stimulate and challenge, drawing out implications for individual organisations and roles.
Leading experts on language and data visualisation also contribute to the course, helping participants put theory into practice.
Language columnist and author of "Writing with Style"
The Economist
Head of data journalism
The Economist
Business affairs editor
The Economist
Finance correspondent
The Economist
Science correspondent
The Economist
Business affairs editor
The Economist
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