• We teach internationally established best practices for clarity, as well as a new staged process to help participants reduce writing and review time.

    We suggest taking the core course before our document- or skill-specific training because it covers foundational content.

    More on core courses

  • These courses teach writers how to:

    • work skillfully with key documents that governments and regulators produce regularly, like briefing notes and decisions

    • avoid the pitfalls for that document type

    • write clearly and quickly under pressure

    • use templates effectively

    • gain from others’ experience with these types of documents

    More on document-specific training

  • These courses focus on and strengthen certain skills your team may need, depending on what they write. These include:

    • editing and proofreading

    • delivering negative messages

    • writing complex documents with multiple drafters

    Ask us if you need a course you don’t see here.

    More on skill-specific training

  • If you prefer to work at your own pace, check out our online school. We offer:

    • a roughly 12-hour course called Briefing Note Fundamentals

    • coffee-break courses that are densely packed mini modules you can take in 40 to 60 minutes

    Our current coffee-break courses are:

    • Why workplace writing is difficult and often unclear (it’s not you)

    • How to structure documents for readability

    • The best style for modern workplace writing

    • More coming soon!

    See online courses

Choose training that fits your needs

We offer on-site training, live webinars, and self-paced online courses. Each workshop is customized to your industry, organization, and group.

Our full course list

Some of our clients

  • Alberta Energy Regulator

  • British Columbia Financial Services Authority

  • British Columbia Securities Commission

  • Canada Energy Regulator

  • Canadian Human Rights Commission

  • Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization

  • Cities of Calgary, Edmonton, Red Deer, Vancouver, and more

  • Civilian Review and Complaint Commission for RCMP

  • Federal and provincial governments (across nearly every ministry)

  • Local Government Administrative Association of Alberta

  • Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board

  • Municipal governments across Canada

  • Nunavut Impact Review Board

  • Office of the Veterans Ombudsman

  • Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments

  • Workers’ Compensation Board

Core courses

  • Effective Writing (by industry)

    Learn the core skills to create clearer, more readable documents, faster.

  • Effective Writing for Government Level 2

    Deepen principles from Effective Writing. Participants apply what they learned to more complex examples.

  • Effective Writing and Reviewing for Managers and Leaders

    A condensed version of Effective Writing with a focus on leaders’ needs and how to give clear, useful feedback to writers.

Ask for a course description

Courses for specific documents

  • Effective Briefing Note Writing

    Deliver strong, concise analysis decision makers can trust

  • Effective Investigation Writing

    Build reports that are concise, well-structured, supported by evidence, and readable

  • Effective Policy and Procedure Writing

    Write coherent, easy-to-implement policies and procedures that improve compliance

  • Effective Decision Writing

    Build a persuasive relationship between mandate or law, evidence, and findings

  • Effective Email Writing

    Write emails that are task-focused, easy to read, and get the results you want

Ask for a course description

Courses in specific skills

  • Effective Editing and Proofreading

    Understand the fundamentals of efficient reviewing (and reduce process time significantly)

  • Deliver Negative Messages Skillfully

    Write professional and respectful messages when readers may not want to hear what you have to say

  • Build Strong Rationale

    Focus on creating strong, evidence-based analysis in any type of document

  • Write Effectively as a Team

    Make decisions early to create consistent, clear, well-ordered content when writing collaboratively

  • Write to Persuade

    Learn to write in a powerful, compelling, and clear style and build a reputation for clarity

Ask for a course description

What we teach your people to do

  • Before

    30 words

  • After

    17 words

  • Before

    51 words

  • After

    50 words

  • Before

    26 words

  • After

    11 words

  • Before

    32 words

  • After

    13 words

  • Before

    48 words

  • After

    33 words

  • "Best writing course I have ever taken."

    Benoît Clément, Director of Financial Innovation at Verra
    (5 star Google review)

  • “One of the best workshops I've attended. Inspiring and motivating to get better at writing."

    Kris Samraj, Councillor for City of Medicine Hat
    (5 star Google review)

  • "This was the most immediately applicable training I have ever taken. Our whole team got excited. We went back and applied what we learned to our Proposal Guide and cut the page count by 50%."

    Lorraine Brekke, Manager of the Cumulative Impacts Monitoring Program

  • "Wordsmith facilitators are as confident, clear and helpful as your writing aims to be. More to learn about effective writing than many might think."

    Chris Taylor, Alberta Education
    (5 star Google review)

  • "I highly recommend Wordsmith. I learned a systematic approach to writing more quickly, clearly and with more persuasion. It was one of the best courses that I've taken since becoming a professional.

    Samantha H
    (5 star Google review)

  • "Sessions were well led by presenters who were very aware of the briefing note process in government. This meant I was able to get maximum value from the information."

    Victoria Laidlaw, Alberta Education
    (5 star Google review)