I am looking to sharpen my instructional writing - is there anything out there to help me? A book, an online class, etc?

Thanks in advance!

Eric,

You might find some resources through your local chapter of the Society for Technical Communications. I've gotten good ideas for non-technical instructional writing from their online discussions.

The organization's main site is here:
http://www.stc.org/

Also, you might find some ideas in "Dump the Drone: Easy Steps to Livelier Courses":

http://www.cathy-moore.com/courses.html

From the above page, you can see slides from a presentation I gave on instructional writing at the eLearning Guild''s 2006 eLearning Producer Conference. There's also a PDF with more detailed notes.

Cathy

Hi Eric... Could you be a bit more specific? There is technical writing (where STC would be a good resource) and there is instructional design. Are you wanting to write better procedural manuals (technical writing) or design better learning and learning support materials (instructional design)?

I am looking to improve my writing within my instructional design, if that makes sense. I am currently working on a course (personal project, non-technical subject) that is fully designed / outlined, and I just completed the script. Now I am looking to tighten up the actual verbage of the script; it feels a bit 'loose' to me. Are there any resources to help me?

In addition to the resources I cited above, you might find Richard Lanham's book Revising Prose to be useful. He describes how to cut the "lard" out of our writing.

Here's a link to his book and some reviews of it on Amazon:

http://tinyurl.com/yrb4fc

Cathy