Set your presenter up for success

Speaking notes are the foundation of a successful presentation. Writing for someone else’s voice and conveying meaningful information to audiences is an art form.

This course teaches you how to:

communicate strong, well-supported messages
structure notes to help speakers find their place, speak confidently, and deliver strong content
adapt to different speaker styles, audiences, and environments

Note—you can also take Effective Presentations if you draft speaking notes that accompany a slide deck.

Effective Speaking Notes

Some of our clients

Alberta Energy Regulator
Alberta Health Services
Canada Energy Regulator
Environment and Climate Change Canada
Department of Ocean and Fisheries Canada
Ministries of Energy and Minerals, Environment and Climate Change, Lands, Infrastructure, Parks and Protected Areas
International Association for Impact Assessment
Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board
Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board
Nunavut Impact Review Board
Verra

Workshop details

We customize our workshops to your organization, team, documents, templates, and style guides

- In-person—Half day (3.5 hours)
- Live webinar—Half day (3.5 hours on Zoom)
Anyone who writes for others or who wants to improve their own presentation skills.
1. We meet with you to discuss your group's challenges and goals
2. You send us a series of representative documents
3. We analyze your documents
4. We customize our course material using excerpts from your documents

Capture the right messages, voice, and tone

What you’ll learn

Apply a step-by-step process to produce strong speaking notes
Learn common problems and how to resolve them
Think deeply about the audience, purpose, and speaking environment
Adapt content to the presenter’s voice
Identify the messages you want to emphasize and make the logic stand out
Create a clear hierarchy of information—make it easy to expand and contract
Support confidence and a natural delivery
Present content so it’s easy to refer to under pressure
Include the right amount of supporting information
Shape the right tone
Manage negative messages
Brief your speaker effectively

Write for the ear, not for the eye

Give useful prompts

I was reflecting on the best courses I’ve taken and this was hands down one of the best. So applicable to my daily work.

— Ministry of Environment and Parks

I appreciated the tailoring of the workshop materials to our organization, using real-time, current writing examples to analyze and improve. It was readily applicable to my work and very professionally done.”

—The Civilian Complaints and Review

I saw an immediate and lasting improvement in my branch and the organization as a whole. Products became much more concise. The biggest benefit was that it gave people permission to leave extraneous details out. It definitely reduced the time spent on reviews and revisions.”

— Executive Director of the Public Service Commission