Speak Plainly
A one-day masterclass at the London Library on plain English at the top, for thirty senior executives and partners whose writing is read by boards, regulators, and the press.
About the day
Speak Plainly is for the senior people whose prose actually decides things. Chief executives, chairs, partners, senior civil servants, and the directors of communications who write for them.
We will spend a day on the working sentences that make difficult ideas land cleanly, with case studies from regulatory letters, public statements, and the kind of short internal memo that has to be right the first time. The tutor has spent twenty-five years editing senior writing in newsrooms and at one cabinet department, and is firm but kind about the passive voice, the parenthetical hedge, and the second sentence that walks back the first.
Drafts are confidential and never leave the room. The room is capped at thirty and we sit at one long table in the London Library reading room, which sets the tone better than any briefing note we could write.
What you will leave with
- A redrafted personal document of your choice, critiqued by the tutor and three peers
- A short style note on your own most common habits, written by the tutor
- A standing invitation to send one document a quarter for a year
The tutor
Editor and writing tutor, formerly senior at a national newspaper
Hannah Sieghart was a senior editor at a national broadsheet for fourteen years and ran the writing programme at a Whitehall communications school after that. She has edited speeches for two cabinet ministers, three regulators, and one notably reluctant chief executive. She lives in Stoke Newington, runs in Clissold Park, and is firm but kind about the passive voice.
The schedule
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09:30
Opening, the case for plain English at the top
Why senior writing fails, and the three habits that account for most of it.
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10:30
Case study one, a regulator’s letter
How the same letter was redrafted three times before it went out.
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12:00
Personal redraft, round one
You work on a document you brought. Ninety minutes, in silence.
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13:30
Lunch
Seated, in the library reading room.
- 14:30
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16:30
Tutor critique and close
Round-the-table notes. Personal style notes distributed in the week after.
Tickets
Early
£380
Early bird
Masterclass, lunch, and the tutor’s written personal style note. Released in March.
Standard
£580
Standard
Masterclass, lunch, drinks, written style note, and one follow-up read.
Patron
£780
Patron
All of the above plus a one-hour tutorial in the eight weeks after the masterclass.
Register
How to book
Booking is at the register form above. Payment is taken in full at the time of registration. The venue is The London Library, 14 St James’s Square, London. If you have a question that needs a conversation rather than a thread, send us a sentence on the contact page and we will reply the same working day.