Professional Writing

Philosophy

Our professional writing course, ENC 3250, will underscore the practical processes of writing and the importance of audience and purpose. Students will enact a variety of writing strategies in order to develop the basic skills of good professional writing. While successful professional writing requires a certain elasticity on the part of the writer, adapting to the writing context, the organization's writing guidelines, the reader's needs, and the author's goal, we believe that writing should aspire to satisfy George Orwell's prescriptions in his famous essay, "Politics and the English Language" (1946). Conscientious professional writers should avoid pretentious diction, use precise and direct language, and be leary of the passive voice.

Mission

To equip students with the skills, knowledge, and understanding of the process that is professional writing. To help students learn how to analyze the audience, determine the purpose, and choose the most effective rhetorical stance given the situation. Within this framework, to expose students to specific professional writing styles and strategies to produce documents that meet the expectations of professional writing. In ENC 3250, students will write at least 6,000 words of graded work in order to satisfy the Gordon Rule requirement for this course.

Outcomes

Students should be able to

• compose documents that demonstrate competency over standard grammar, punctuation, and mechanics;
• compose documents that adhere to proper business formats;
• compose documents that reveal an attentiveness to purpose;
• compose documents that answer the audience's expectations;
• understand the ethical implications involved in their writing tasks, especially as they relate to their purpose, audience, and profession;
• understand that professional language is elastic, responsive to the audience, the situation, and the purpose;
• consider and evaluate the effectiveness of various rhetorical strategies as applied in different professional contexts;
• work collaboratively to evaluate, review, revise, and produce their written projects;
• conduct appropriate research and cite sources accurately and correctly;
• write assignments under strictures of deadlines;
• use technology in effective communication;
• understand style issues of professional writing (such as jargon, buzz words, passive constructions, slang, clich&#eacute;s, tone, positive language) and their appropriate and inappropriate uses;
• produce and revise documents for clear, precise, reader-based prose.