BY Edward Ashton
A common question asked of professional writing students—particularly by relatives—is something like, “Oh, professional writing, is that kind of like journalism?” One answer to this would simply be to say no, but that would be an incomplete answer. This is partly because journalism is yet another field in which professional writers are not explicitly required, but where they often do very well. Professional writers, as well as anyone with some degree of training and skill in professional communication, can find a place or role for themselves in nearly any industry. When the industry in question is journalism, it is especially easy to see why that is the case. Both professions, at their very core, involve the clear and effective communication of information. One major distinction is that they are generally written for different audiences, but when you get to the heart of the matter, the fact is that both jobs are centered around writing.
What is particularly nice about professional writing is that it is broad-based and widely applicable. Good professional writing is useful to almost any business one could think of, and there is no reason that a news organization should be excluded from this list. Quite the contrary is true; newspapers and other media outlets are for communicating and transmitting ideas, and good writing is key to that. Hopefully, reading this article will provide you with a bit of useful information, and the next time you get that common question at a family gathering, you will be able to answer with a bit more confidence.
First, it is important to know that there are jobs out there for professional writers in journalism, and in fact, UAB can help you if you are serious about locating one. Lindsay McDuffie, a graduate of the UAB Professional Writing program, has been working in professional and technical writing, including in journalism, since before she even graduated. While still a student at UAB, she got a job as a professional editor for Tuscaloosa-based paper Planet Weekly. This job involved both editing and writing articles and documents for the paper, both of which provided useful experience. In particular, she learned the importance of knowing how to talk to writers, and how to make sure that they are happy and that you, as the editor, get the material you need. Being able to collaborate smoothly with other writers like this, she said, was one of many of the skills she learned from the professional writing program at UAB.
Lindsay got the referral for the editing job from a friend, but she credited her professional writing training for actually getting her the job. In fact, she offers words of encouragement to people who are majoring in English in general, saying that English majors are seen as competent communicators and just desirable employees overall. When her boss at her current job asked what her degree was in, he was enthusiastic when she told him it was English, saying that he knew she would be putting out good work. “When they hear that you have an English degree, people have a lot of trust in your ability from the start,” she says. For example, as Lindsay explained, “they know that if you send out an email it’s going to be grammatically correct, it’s going to make sense, it’s going to get the point across.” Her current employer expressed some degree of frustration about having hired people who were very qualified for their job, but then finding out that those people did not have very good command of the language. This, Lindsay says, is one of the things that makes English majors very attractive to companies, and professional writing majors in particular.
Part of the technical editing job involved passing finished writing work on to a creative director, also informally known as “the layout guy”. Essentially, this is the person who takes the raw written material and turns it into a finished product that is ready to be printed. This kind of skill is another thing that professional writing majors learn, since working with the industry-standard Adobe Creative Suite is something students focus on in some of the professional writing classes. One example from this past semester was EH 330: Designing Digital Documents, which covered many aspects of what a “layout guy” would do. In fact, it was this particular class that was responsible for creating the layout and content of this newsletter, starting from scratch and working up to a finished product. So you could say that the professional writing program provides the skills necessary not only to be a good writer in a journalistic setting, but also to work as an editor, or as a creative director setting layouts and visual designs. This is more evidence of the versatility of a professional writing degree.
Lindsay’s experience at Planet Weekly was eye opening for her, in that it showed her that her prospects were very diverse, and it affirmed that the skills she learned in the program would be useful ones. She said that she had concerns about whether the degree she was pursuing could really lead to much employment, but she reports that luckily, as you can see, she didn’t have anything to worry about after all. She left the paper after working there for a little over a year, a split that coincided roughly with her graduation from UAB with her degree in Professional Writing.
“Be confident in your skills, remember what you’ve learned, utilize technology, and understand that research is a big part of the job that you will always have to do regardless of what kind of writing you do. That’s part of knowing your audience, which is huge.”
One interesting offshoot of this relationship between professional writing and journalism is that Lindsay has found her experience with the newspaper to be useful in her new position in a business setting. As a Training Curriculum Developer for a private business, she has to work closely with her co-workers, including bosses as well as people who work under her. In particular, her interviewing skills, learned at UAB and sharpened by working for the newspaper, have been very important to make sure that she is getting as much information as she can. Furthermore, the information must be as high quality as possible, so that it will be of use to her in planning the curriculum for the future.
Her job largely involves organizing information into usable documents, which is almost a dictionary definition of professional and technical writing. This is obviously a skill learned from the program here at UAB, and the tie-in with journalism is that in both applications it is extremely important to know your audience. That is to say, when writing an technical document about cars for mechanics’ use, it would be easier to use technical terms. The other side of this is that if that article were written for a popular audience, such as in a newspaper car review, the language would have to be understandable to an average car buyer, who would not be familiar with—or very interested in—the complexities of a transversely mounted engine. Just as journalists must do this, so must a curriculum developer for a company. Whoever will be training the candidates must be able to understand the information contained in the documents so that the information can be transmitted to the audience. This theme of transmitting information to an audience is as central to journalism as it is to professional writing in general, which further strengthens the link between the two disciplines.
On the whole, Lindsay is very satisfied with her role in her current job, but she says that journalism was a great experience. She would be glad to go back to journalism if provided the right opportunity in a capacity she wanted to fill. There are many different types of jobs in journalism, from working on the business side of an organization to actually working in the newsroom as a reporter or copy writer. Both of these sides of the industry have job opportunities for professional writers, again demonstrating the versatility of the discipline. Depending on one’s capacity at a given news organization, there may be some real flexibility in deadlines, as well as free reign as far as content and subject of stories. Also, there may well be an opportunity to telecommute, which for some people is a very desireable trait in a job. Spending time in the field is often exciting as well, and nobody wants monotony.
Lindsay had a few bits of advice for those of us who are students in UAB’s Professional Writing program. For one thing, she says, “Be confident in your skills,” as it is important to realize that your time and effort is valuable. Another bit of advice: “Remember what you learn.” This sounds fairly obvious, but the memory is a bit unreliable sometimes, so perhaps keep some notes of things that you consider particularly useful. Also, Lindsay says, “Become familiar with technology, and use it to your advantage,” because you can really impress a prospective employer by being able to make a nice looking presentation, for example. And finally, Lindsays offers that you must not get out of the habit of doing research, because if you are going to write about any topic, you have to have a good working knowledge of it. Otherwise, the ideas you are trying to get across may end up lost in translation, so to speak.
There you have it: first-hand information from someone who writes for a living, in this case specific to journalism. If you are the type who has an interest in writing for a publication, remember this article, and don’t think for a moment that you won’t be able to land that position. Professional writing’s uses are, after all, tremendously versatile, and tremendously important. Being able to communicate effectively with your words can only serve to assist you in your job search and career.
