When you participate in any of the online Write Smart programs, you will be partnering with Mike McClory, one of America’s foremost authorities on turning good ideas into good writing. You will be engaged in a series of live, 21st century, multi-media learning activities — not just sitting through another tedious PowerPoint slide show.

After graduating from Northwestern University, Mike began his career with the Congressional Digest, a publication that has earned a reputation — over a span of 90 years — for presenting different sides of complex issues in crisp, unpretentious language. Years later, in a 1996 interview, he recalled the experience:

Working with seasoned professional editors was full of surprises. I found, for instance, that people in the publishing business expend an enormous amount of time and energy applying the fundamentals of grammar and punctuation. In a few weeks, I learned more about writing than I had learned in four years of high school and four years of college.

As an instructor, Mike is not a dull ivory-tower type. His background includes:

• Producing six videos, beginning with How to Become a Smarter Writer by Solving Word Puzzles, plus a series of brain-training Grammar Games — lively, entertaining online resources that make learning fun.
• Publishing the 250-page Write Smart eBook. This unique online resource provides a simplified, step-bystep Writing & Editing Blueprint, which explains the 12 fundamental language patterns that skilled professional writers and editors rely on to communicate clearly and persuasively.
• Editing the Hill Rag, a monthly Capitol Hill newsmagazine. The publication grew from 36 pages to 98 pages and became the most widely read community-based newsmagazine in Washington, DC.
• Making television commercials in New York for Fortune 500 companies.
• Teaching English and math in public and private schools (K-12) in California, Connecticut, Maryland, and Washington, DC.

Mike McClory has taught “plain English” techniques to people of all ages and backgrounds, from fourth graders to PhDs. Participants in his writing and editing programs have come from a broad cross-section of business, government, nonprofit, and education organizations: