Professional Writing Minor
Excludes students enrolled in BA in English, Professional and Creative Writing or the Certificate in Professional Writing
The professional writing minor suits students looking to become more technically sound in their writing, which translates well in basically any career field.
In this program, you will:
- Take courses that prepare you to write for publication and to become proficient in professional writing and editing.
- Closely read and identify examples of professional writing in a variety of formats and media and recognize, understand and implement the components of professional writing in a variety of formats (reports, manuals, memos, grant proposals, etc)
- Develop a keen eye for proofreading documents and understand advanced grammatical and stylistic structures that help you adapt writing to different purposes and audiences
This minor pairs well with many areas of study. It is an excellent fit with any major that requires strong writing skills. Some common examples include:
- Communication/journalism
- Marketing
- Human communication studies
- Business
- Geography
- Social work
- History
- Psychology
Some specific examples of job titles include:
- Technical writer
- Web content creator
- Copywriter
- Publishing assistant
- Advertising copywriter
- Grant writer
- Fundraiser
- Lawyer
- Author
- Public relations specialist
- Social media manager
- Marketing coordinator
- Speech writer
- Proposal manager
In the classroom, you will take part in hands-on work, much of it collaborative, as you investigate the ways knowledge and documents are theorized and produced, as you create professional projects and share feedback with fellow writers. Emphasis is on publishing your own work in a variety of traditional and online venues. Outside the classroom, you might attend relevant talks and readings by invited authors and writers, practice your editorial skills by working on The Reflector or Write the Ship, submit your writings to contests and conferences, or become a writing tutor as you hone your own writing skills.
Course Work for the Professional Writing Minor
There are two core courses in technical writing where the focus is on strong writing skills and learning about common forms and types of workplace writing. You will analyze audience, purpose, and context in order to plan and produce a variety of effective written texts. The advanced course expands your project management and organizational skills as you create more sophisticated semester-long projects, incorporating advanced publishing and editing in long documents, website building and page layout and design.