Sub-editing skills: live Zoom course
Learn to take a tangled draft and make its point land. Find its angle, order its structure, simplify every line. A live, one-day sub-editing course.
Date: 10:00, 24 September
Location: Online
Cost: £250.00 + VAT
Trainer: Martin Lloyd
Your writing should never get in the way of what you have to say. That is what a sharp edit buys you, and what a rough draft loses.
Your trainer is Martin Lloyd, who spent ten years as the BBC's writing standards editor. In a single live day, he shows you how to take a tangled draft and make it sharp and persuasive: simpler language, a clearer angle, a structure that carries the argument.
What AI writes is smooth, competent, flat. It hands you a draft that reads fine but misses the point, or leads on the wrong argument. Catching that is the edit, and no tool does it for you.
Put one person on the next session, or the whole team. Or book a bespoke version: any length, any day, on Zoom or in person.
Who is it for?
- Journalists, editors and sub-editors
- PRs and comms staff who edit copy
- Marketing and social writers who want it sharper
- Anyone who checks or improves other people's copy
- No sub-editing experience needed
Why do it?
- Copy that goes out right the first time, not after three passes
- A team that can edit its own work, instead of everything routing through one person
- Editing learned properly, not just picked up on the job
- A higher standard across everything your team puts out
What you will learn
- How to find a story's real point and lead with it
- Structure that keeps a reader to the end
- When to rewrite, when to cut, and when to leave a line alone
- Simplifying copy: plainer words, fewer of them
- Content editing: judging a story's angle and its "so what?"
- Editing features and longer analysis pieces
- Sharpening someone's copy without losing their voice
A single day on Zoom, 10am to 5pm, with regular breaks and an hour for lunch.
About Martin Lloyd
Martin Lloyd is a JournalismUK and NCTJ trainer. He spent ten years as writing standards editor at the BBC Academy - training news journalists, TV and radio producers, and senior managers. He mentored a team of 15 digital content producers, and produced writing guides for BBC staff.
Martin has since trained staff at the likes of Fortune, the UK Government, ITV, Forbes, Global, NICE, Yahoo News and the International Olympic Committee.
He has also mentored editors at the Financial Times and the Guardian.
Earlier in his career, Martin edited copy and designed pages for newspapers and magazines including Metro, Broadcast, New Statesman and Campaign.
Prefer to work at your own pace? Or want to focus on proofreading?
Martin also runs:
Sub-editing masterclass - a comprehensive online course, taken any time at your own pace
Proofreading: what AI still misses - a live day on catching what AI often can't
You can also book private sessions for your team. Contact Ophelia at ophelia@journalism.co.uk or call 07516252910.
