By Hannah Burdekin

You might be interested to learn about a number of live and recorded courses offered by IPEd, the Institute of Professional Editors of Australia and New Zealand. I recently registered for a recorded webinar by Linda Nix entitled ‘Effectively using it: How good grammar contributes to clearer writing’. For $20, it was very good value, covering a number of key principles and useful information. A basic understanding of English grammatical terminology is required, but the content included has something for everyone. If you’ve ever wondered how to decide on correct placement of prepositions and modifiers such as adverbs, want to know why parallel construction is important, or feel like you need a refresher on subject-verb agreement, you might benefit from this webinar. And the idea that a split infinitive is to be avoided in English is a misconception so feel free to boldly sprinkle your adverbs! 

(Mac users: please note that the booking function does not currently appear to work in the Safari browser. Try an alternative such as Chrome or Firefox.)

IPEd also runs an accreditation scheme and the sample exams with answer papers, available on the IPEd website, are a useful resource for anyone who wants to brush up their written English skills and identify gaps in their existing knowledge. 

Do you have tips on brushing up other skills? NZSTI would love you to send us a short article for members to read on our website. Email info@nzsti.org