writing in the workplace

In my "Strategies for Writing in the Workplace" class, I was just given an assignment to pick a particular category of workplace writing to learn more about. One of the options on the list provided is promotional writing. Promotional writing includes brochures, scripts, newsletters, and press releases. I think it would be great to learn more about promotional writing, because it is definitely something I could see myself doing in the future.

When I first decided on being a Professional Studies major, my advisor told me that a lot of people end up in some not-for-profit work environment. While that may not seem glamorous to some, I actually find it very appealing. I would love to work for an organization that is dedicated to a cause and helping people and the environment. So, promotional writing is something that I am going to start investigating because I think it ties in nicely with not-for-profit organizations in that they need to put out newsletters and press releases to bring awareness to the organization.

If you could pick some sort of workplace writing to investigate, which would you choose? Ever wonder who writes the company newsletter or who thought of all the details to go into the company handbook?

What can you do with that?!

Every semester starts out the same: you're sitting in class, looking around, trying to find someone you can talk to. Well, every semester pretty much starts out with the same conversation for me. It goes like this: "What's your name?"; "What year are you?"; "What's your major?"; "What is that?!", "Oh, so what kind of job can you get?"

Well, I was really curious in the beginning too because this is slightly unconventional and a program that most other colleges don't offer. But, I think it is actually really great. I went into a few different job search engines and just plugged in a 4-year degree, with interests in each of the minors I have. The latest one showed 530+ jobs within a 30 miles radius of my house.

I recently started an internship for a small company in West Chester. It is a computer company, but I was hired to do their billing and accounting work. So, every 2 weeks is billing and I enter all accounts payable and receivable (knowledge I've gotten from my accounting minor). Part of billing is sending out invoices with details of all the work we have done for the clients. It is my job to proofread those documents and make sure they sound professional (knowledge from my business & technical writing comes into play here). All of this work is done on the computer and in Excel spreadsheets (knowledge from my information technology minor makes this easier).

I feel really luck to be a part of this program because I feel so much more confident at work with having this broad range of knowledge that comes from being able to study in a few different fields at once. If you could pick any 2 or 3 fields to study in, which would you pick?

writing and computers go hand-in-hand

I realize more and more everyday how much the writing I do is connected to the computer. A prime example would be this very blog. One of my minors is in the business and technical writing field, another is in information technology. These are two fields that were once very separate and distinct, but on Friday I was given the same assignment in two different classes. One class was in the BTW minor, the other class was an IT class. The assignment is to create and build my own website. While some of the details are different, the overall goal is to put myself and my ideas out there in cyberspace. That just shows us how much of an influence the Internet has on our lives and if our ideas are out there, we will be heard (even if it is in written form).