Career & communication · course 59 of 105
Business Writing That Gets Read
Cut work emails down to what gets read: main point first, plain words, active voice, short sentences, bullet lists that work, and bad news without sounding cold.
Not on sale yet. When sales open: $4.99 USD for this course, paid once, or every course for $9.99 USD a month. Prices
$4.99 USD, paid once. Or every course for $9.99 USD a month until you cancel; try it free for 7 days first (email only, no card, ends on its own). Tax added at checkout where it applies.
Runs in Claude (claude.ai, the Claude apps or Claude Code) with your own Claude account. A course opens there as soon as your payment goes through; nothing is shipped.
Preview
What it teaches
The plain-language rules that make work emails short and clear: main message first, plain words instead of wordy phrases (in order to, prior to, utilise), hidden verbs (conduct an analysis of → analyze), active voice, sentences of 25 words or fewer, positive language, must instead of shall, GOV.UK-style bullet lists, and how to apologize, give bad news and chase a payment without sounding cold. The AI asks 3 questions, places you, shows a short card per module, then gives you one sentence, choice or email at a time and checks it against the rules, naming the rule that broke.
How long
50 items. About 25-50 rounds (about 25 for a confident writer, about 50 for a beginner) plus a 12-item final: 2-3 sessions (estimate, not timed with a real student). The tutor gives a one-line save code at the end of each session.
The modules
4 modules, drilled one item at a time.
- M0
The rules
Concept questions
- M1
Plain words
Rewrite one sentence
- M2
Active, short and positive
Rewrite or pick
- M3
Structure and whole emails
Pick the opening sentence, fix a bullet list, or find what an email gets wrong
Before it teaches, it asks
- 1What do you write most at work (emails to clients, to your team, reports, chat), and what do people say about your writing: too long, too stiff, unclear?
- 2Rewrite in plain words: “We will conduct an analysis of the survey results.”
- 3Rewrite in the active voice: “The new rules were explained by the trainer in the first session.”
What’s exact, and what isn’t
Show
Straight from the course’s own notes.
- Sourced
- Every rule comes from (or is a stricter form of) the US federal plain-language guidance (digital.gov’s Plain Language guides and the PlainLanguage.gov archive, US government works) or GOV.UK’s writing guidelines and A to Z style guide (Open Government Licence v3.0). Short quotes matched word for word on the live pages, and all 19 word swaps (prior to → before...) checked as one row of their page’s table, on 2026-10-10.
- Checked by script
- Every M1 sentence really contains the phrase its Fix names and no key, Model or right option contains any phrase from the 27-phrase wordy list; every passive item trips a passive pattern and no key does; in each spot-the-passive item only the key option is passive; every split key sentence is 25 words or fewer; no positive key has a negative word; every bullet Model passes the GOV.UK bullet rules and the broken list breaks exactly the rules its key names; every email Model leads with its main message and keeps every fact its item requires. A planted-error test (7 errors) was caught. The patterns are a rough net, so the tutor grades by the rules, not the script.
- Judged, not computed
- Which facts an email must carry (the Musts) and which sentence should open a message; both apply the sourced main-message-first rule. Whether another version counts is judged against the item’s rules. The “no passive sentence” Musts are stricter than the sources, which allow a passive when the outcome matters more than who acted (digital.gov; GOV.UK).
- Not in it yet
- Subject lines, reports and longer documents, headings, tone for difficult messages beyond apology and bad news, grammar and spelling.