Communication department seeks strategies to streamline the writing process and add variety
As a member of the XRCE Communication Department, part of Claudia Heyer’s job is to write English-language articles about XRCE for the Xerox global corporate intranet platform, a task made all the more daunting by the fact that Claudia’s native language is German!
XRCE is a Xerox research and development center in Grenoble, France. XRCE researchers create innovative document technologies for the Xerox office and global solutions and services businesses. The center employs about 80 people and is part of the global Xerox Innovation Group.
The solution: a made-to-measure course covering the entire writing process
Claudia asked SFM Traduction to come up with a made-to-measure course to address her unique needs. The two-day course covered the writing process, effective writing for the web, different article types and their structures, developing a persona to target writing to a specific readership, and personalizing pieces with quotes and real-life anecdotes. And, because Claudia writes in her second language, English, the course also offered tailor-made tips and tricks for proofreading and correcting her own work to catch mistakes.
According to Claudia, “Sara’s training has been of great value to me. Her excitement about good structure and precise language has been downright infectious. Not only has she helped me to improve my English writing skills, she has also given me confidence in my ability to write in English.”
Ongoing progress on the job through real-time editing services
Once the two-day training course was completed, SFM continued to support Claudia by editing her pieces prior to publication. This service helped Claudia to meet deadlines and consolidate the skills learned during the training—she received all of the corrections for each article as well as a “clean” version of the improved article for publication. She adds, “When I send Sara draft articles in English they come back not only with the English corrected, but Sara also manages to add enthusiasm to them!”
Comments on this entry are closed.