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7 Lessons on Writing for Becoming a Standout Writer (Udemy.com)

Tested Techniques for Fast Writing Skills Improvement

Created by: Duncan Koerber

Last updated August 2026

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What you will learn

  • Write clear, precise, and direct prose
  • Find alternative ways of constructing sentences
  • Communicate better with readers
  • Avoid clichéd words and phrases
  • Develop greater command of the English language

How it compares

Against the other 503 rated Udemy courses in Teaching & Academics on CourseDuck:

  • Rating4.5 out of 5higher than 42% of them
  • Reviews4,889#32 of 504 by number of reviews
  • Length2.6 hoursshorter than 62% of them
  • Last updatedAugust 2026more recently than 94% of them

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Course Description

  • One of the high-rated writing courses on Udemy

  • 4.63 out of 5 all time student rating (92.6%)

  • 2700 5-Star reviews

  • Taught by a UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR, Dr. Duncan Koerber

    What students say...

"Excellent--I rate it ten stars out of five." — Julie Heyer, Udemy Student

"Take this course - improve your writing — end of story!" — James Cochrane, Udemy Student

"The content is fantastic."
  — Chris Lewis, Udemy Student

"Information that you can apply right away."
— Kim Ruby, Udemy Student

"I can tell he's passionate about his work and he shows it throughout the lessons."
— Ana, Udemy Student

"I recommend this course to anyone who wants to improve their writing."
— Sheverley Maye, Udemy Student

"This is an especially useful and remarkably good course." 
— Avrohom Meir Greenhut,

Udemy Student


"The assignments forced me to become more objective and build better habits."
— Marla Morris, Udemy Student 

"The explanation of parallelism and its usage was simply amazing."
— Bindu Midha, Udemy Student

Do you want to impress employers, editors, or online readers with your writing?
Do you want to get A grades on term papers and essays?
Do you want to become a good writer – in creative non-fiction, journalism, fiction, or academic writing – as quickly as possible?

The secret to this writing success is not studying 200 grammar and style points in the writing textbooks. 

Instead, this course – designed by an experienced university professor and published author with Oxford University Press – shows you the sentence-level lessons you need to know to write well.

These are the 7 most common problems found in people’s writing.
These problems most likely lurk – like weeds – in your writing right now.   

If you complete the lessons and exercises honestly and fully as outlined in this course, then your writing will improve in just a few weeks of intensive study. If you do not find this course helpful, you may request a refund within 30 days, no questions asked.     

These lessons and exercises were designed and tested at the University of Toronto and York University with thousands of undergraduate students. Many students improved their grades by a whole grade category after completing these lessons, finding that this short list of key lessons provides clarity. Students have applied these lessons in the workplace to great success. 

Join now and complete this course to produce writing that gets you the job, earns you an A grade, lands you a writing contract, or impresses that magazine or newspaper editor.   

In this comprehensive course, I will help you:

  • See sentences more objectively;

  • Understand the factors that interfere with communication;

  • Remove dead language – such as dead verbs and weak nouns – from your writing;

  • Avoid embarrassing clichés;

  • Write more clear, direct, and precise sentences;

  • Use adjectives and adverbs more carefully, in targeted ways;

  • Write poetically and rhythmically with parallelism and sentence variation;

  • Add detail to your writing;

  • Become an original writer, not a copy.

Your writing transformation awaits...

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Instructor Details

Duncan Koerber

Dr. Duncan Koerber has taught writing and communication courses to thousands of students for almost twenty years at eight Canadian universities.

Oxford University Press recently published his writing textbook, Clear, Precise, Direct: Strategies for Writing (2015). Available on Amazon, the book considers the seven most common errors (interfering factors) in writing and how to improve them (enhancing factors). His second book, Crisis Communication in Canada, was published by University of Toronto Press in 2017. 

Currently an Associate Professor at Brock University in Ontario, Canada, Duncan Koerber worked for nearly 10 years in reporting and editing roles for the London Free Press, the Mississauga News, and the University of Toronto Medium. He has freelanced for magazines and newspapers, including the Toronto Star.

Duncan Koerber has been a successful freelance editor, earning a 95% success rating on Upwork. 

Duncan Koerber has a bachelor of arts degree in English, Professional Writing, and Political Science from the University of Toronto (2001), a master of arts degree in Journalism from the University of Western Ontario (2003), and a Ph.D. in Communication and Culture from York University and Ryerson University (2009).

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Reviews

4.5

4,889 ratings on Udemy

Select a bar to show only those reviews.Select the bar again to show every rating.

By Mohammed Afaq Ahmed on 7/7/2026

Course is stuck & not able to proceed. No options to move forward or back.

By Lumbini Isuru Sampath Ganege Don on 5/2/2025

This course is one of the best courses in language and its use for clear, concise expression I have ever followed (I have tried quite a few on the subject matter). The length, the details, the style and the examples are all very useful, ideal and eye-opening. I will be following the trainer! 10\10 in my opinion!

By Lisa Bendler on 3/25/2025

Great course. I really enjoyed and learned a lot. This course will really help hone my skills and make my writing clear and concise for the reader.I know I will employ all these elements to better my writing and enjoyed the assignments. Thank you for the course and will look into your other offerings.

By Michael Miller on 5/28/2024

Because I am very impressed with the material covered so far I have learned so much and I have learned that I can relate to the material that is presented here I have made mistakes in writing and from learning from the content I now know what I need to do for my blog and to starting a book. There are also terms I have never heard of before which is amazing. Five stars for this course would recommend it to anyone!!

By Swaraj Prasad on 7/22/2021

Duncan has created the nice course. He divided each section 2-3 minutes length. That's praiseworthy. Writing is a diverse set of dimension that can be explained in a course. But he done justice. He focuses in his speech more on academic and creative writers. But, I work as a content writer on online websites where people love to have short sentences. In blog, the writing arrangement quite be tricky, Please add a section on blog writing too. Because our CEOs don't let us to readers to go slow by long sentences. So, is it okay to use only short sentences in blogs?

By Thomas Callahan on 2/9/2021

The course proved fun and an incredible bargain. I would recommend this to any new or veteran writer. The distilled knowledge, the professional content and the usefulness of information made this class a win. I've signed up for more of the instructor's classes because of the quality and usefulness of this one.

By Donagh Cagney on 12/21/2020

This is great - course material focuses on a getting across a limited number of fundamental points, with useful exercises to implant the lessons into our brains. And the instructor gave me feedback on one of my exercises, which was great! Highly recommend

By Jo Missi on 10/27/2020

Excellent! I love this course. I have to watch this course over and over again. I strongly recommend this course to everyone.

By Sharon McInnes on 10/26/2020

Yes, the course is a good match for my current writing ability. The techniques taught in the first few minutes allowed me to make my writing more readable.

By Malebo on 9/21/2020

i have a book deal :)

By Valerie Harder on 9/19/2020

Yes, so far basic but good reminders and labels for the unnecessary words of any sentence.

By Henry Staggs on 8/24/2020

Great examples and clear examples

Showing 12 of 140 reviews

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Overall Score : 90 / 100