Volume 3 Issue 2 – MEMORANDUM

5 Tips for Writing on Social Media

man holding smartphone with social media alerts — Image courtesy of Adobe Stock

5 Tips for Writing on Social Media

By Erica Turner

Social media is one of the most popular communication outlets people use in the 21st century. Many utilize social media as a way to develop their brand or business and to reach people all over the world. As writers, we have to be innovative when reaching vast audiences and getting them to view our brand or business. Here are five tips that can help improve your performance:

Write Great Headlines. A headline is the first thing, if not the only thing, a prospective reader will see when they scroll upon a post. Make sure your headline is impactful and states the real purpose of your post or page.
Use Action-Oriented Language. The purpose of using social media is to get your audience to do something, whether it’s to attend an event, purchase something or watch a video. By using interesting adjectives or even posing a question, you can draw in your reader to doing exactly what action you want them to perform.
Tailor Your Message. How you write your posts on Facebook should not be the same way you construct your posts on Twitter. Tailor your message depending on what network you are trying to reach your audience on. The content you share will perform differently depending on the social network.
Post with Purpose. Make sure that you’re not posting things blindly and that there is meaning behind what you post. Always keep in mind why you are posting, and make sure your content reflects that message.
Put Share Buttons at the Bottom of EVERY post. After you’ve constructed a beautifully written and innovative post, make sure the post is easily accessible for readers to share. By placing social media share buttons at the bottom of all posts, your content will then have the potential to spread to reach a wider audience.

With these tips, you can create social media posts your audience will find captivating and shareable.

The Case for a Full Bookshelf

row of books — Image courtesy of Adobe Stock

By Allison Underwood

It’s okay to keep your books.

Every time the end of a semester comes, I never know what to do with my books. As an English major myself, I’ve wrestled with this problem throughout my college career. I just spent months pouring into these texts, marking up their pages with my own thoughts as well as comments my professors have made. Throwing them away is not an option. It’s possible to sell them, but again—I just spent months in their pages.

This problem is particularly relevant to professional writing students. The books in that particular branch of English are such a valuable resource. I don’t think I’ll be rereading Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend from a past literature class anytime soon, but I’ve already looked at The Non-Designer’s Design Book by Robin Williams a few times this semester for extracurricular design work.

Sure, I could have Googled what I was looking for, but that’s another reason professional writing textbooks are great to keep around. Even though books are essentially out of date the moment they print, books in the professional writing field will always have an edge over online resources. The first result on a Google search for “document design rules” is The 50 Most Important Rules of Document Design.

This article was a wall of text—even the section on the color wheel. By the time I scrolled down the long list, eyes blurring, trying to find the subtitle I needed, I could have flipped through Williams’ guide and seen an image related to my topic of interest.

That isn’t to say all webpages are walls of text, but students may be more likely to remember something learned from their book. I would rather look through an old textbook for the concept I vaguely remember than search online for an article that might not give me the same advice. I can look at my books to reference something a professor said about a certain topic. I can return to my original frame of mind when I first read the text. I can read my old insights and pen my new ones.

Keep your textbooks—they’ll always be useful, even if their use is taking up bookshelf space and helping you appear smarter.

There’s More Than One Way to Become a Journalist

By Casey Marley

Reporting notes

I did not come to college with the intention of majoring in my native language. I knew I wanted to work with media, and I found journalism through working at and eventually becoming the editor of our campus newspaper. By learning the trade outside of the classroom, I found that my English classes were actually helping me more at my job than any other classes.

With hard work, your English degree can help you work towards your goal of becoming a journalist in ways you might not realize:

Core literature classes teach you how to examine and question.

By studying literature, you learn how to break apart and examine word choices, question an author’s motives, put pieces in context and simply ask questions. Not only will you start to see stories in daily life, but you learn how to question those in charge of your community—a curiosity that’s necessary to become a good journalist.

Those papers you write constantly will make you a great writer.

Journalists write constantly, so if you have an interest in journalism you need to have a command of the English language, the ability to produce multiple 500-word articles each day and an understanding of the editing process. By having professional rhetoricians and English scholars critique your work while in school, you become a skilled writer, the core component of any job in journalism.

The professional writing program gives you practical experience.

Do you want opportunities to become published and learn how to code? The Professional Writing program does just this. In “Writing for Popular Periodicals,” my final project required me to write an actual magazine article, which was later published. In “Digital Publishing,” UAB students learn how to apply their writing skills in an extremely marketable way: learning how to code HTML and CSS to build their own portfolio while building and managing the Memorandum website and newsletter.

Brandon Varner is the current Kaleidoscope Editor-in-Chief and Community Blogger for AL.com. The soon-to-graduate English major has proven that the Professional Writing program can prepare you for this career field.

“I think that I couldn’t have accomplished my goals without the professional writing program,” Brandon said. “The layout and design training I gained in the program has been invaluable in my time at Kscope, and through my position at Kscope I attracted attention from AL.com. I wouldn’t be where I am today without Dr. Bacha and the program at UAB.”

If journalism appeals to you as a Professional Writing student, you’ve come to the right place. The supporting community of faculty members and peers will help you in your career-discovery journey.

Publish Yourself – Create a Zine

By Adam Jones

Circulating your name amongst the realm of professional writers can prove to be difficult—especially if you’re lacking the necessary time to work as an intern. However, a simple (and cheap) method of publication that has risen back to the surface of the mainstream over the past decade is the pamphlet-style “zine.”

Stemming from works like Martin Luther’s 95 Theses and Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, it is evident that zines are effective while, at the same time, allowing a writer’s personal brand to remain intact. And they are markedly easy to produce.

Generate content that matters to you.

Philly-based Maya Smith has recently tacked zine-making onto the list of their multiple creative talents. As a queer person of color, Smith has dealt firsthand with the oppressions that both black Americans and queer folk are faced with in our society. To educate their readers on how they (and others like them) feel, Maya is creating their zine, entitled black//queer, to show people what it’s like to be non-binary and of color in America.

“My zine is mainly about getting word about the lives of young black and queer or non-binary people out there,” Smith said via web interview. “I talk about my own experiences as well as what this means to me on a larger scale (like with other people and how I’m seen in the world, etc). I’m making it to put out there for anyone to see and read, really.”

Smith went on to explain that they have one more photo shoot to finish before the zine will be complete. Then, they will begin printing, binding and, finally, distributing (advertising their work at a cost of merely $5 per zine).

This simple, cost-efficient method of publication is ideal for any young writer that is stuck in the professional limbo of working towards an undergraduate degree. Examples of cool, popular zines can be found all over the web. In fact, eHow.com offers an excellent tutorial for first time zine-makers.

Compositional Composting

By Lane Smith

Do What?

Photo of a recycling waste paper basket on an office floor — Image courtesy of Adobe Stock

Throughout the typical writing process, writers create numerous drafts and test prints designed to check for errors in grammar and formatting. This creates a massive problem in regards to paper waste. I decided to try to do something about this two years ago. So what did I do? I started composting.

The problem is what to do with all of this waste paper, and there are a multitude of things we can do with this waste. Many choose to toss their paper waste into the garbage, or recycle it. However, there is a third option, and that is to compost it. When I realized this a few years ago, I became passionate about composting and sustainable issues.

Low Maintenance

Landfills are overflowing and recycling centers are not popping up quickly enough, but why rely on someone else to recycle my waste? I can recycle right at home with composting. If you are not known as a person with a green thumb, don’t worry; you have a chance to be the person known to have a brown thumb. Composting is a low-maintenance activity and once it is set up it will more often than not give you great results.

Are you wondering why I am talking to a group of writers about the environment? It is primarily because writers produce massive amounts of paper waste every year. We all know about the local recycling center and pick up, and some of us actually use those systems. Composting will provide you with some of the richest soil you have ever seen, and it can be made right in your backyard. You never have to leave your house to take care of the earth and your garden.

Drafting Some Dirt

So, if you are getting the itch to start drafting some awesome dirt, check out some of these great articles and tutorials at Earth Easy. I should not forget to mention that UAB has new programs for sustainable futures. They have added over ninety classes regarding sustainability, and have developed both majors and minors for the subject. They are also encouraging professors to incorporate sustainability into the curriculum of any classroom, as talked about in the UAB Reporter, and even offer a stipend for participants in the workshop.

Being sustainable and writing about sustainable causes is becoming a very large part of the public rhetoric. Start composting your drafts and prints, and take part in making the future a greener place, one compost heap at a time.

Dubble Trubble

By Alex Wright

mortarboard on top of books and diploma — Image courtesy of Adobe Stock

Choosing a college major can be one of the most stressful and important decisions that you will make in your life. A large percentage of students choose a traditional route through college and complete a single major and often a minor.

However, studies have indicated that in recent years we have seen a significant rise in double major students. The option to double major is available at UAB, and sometimes you can complete both majors within a four-year plan.

As a current double major (English with a focus in Professional Writing, and Communications with a focus in Journalism), I have taken a multitude of writing courses that have assisted me throughout my college career.

One Communications class in particular, 210 Newswriting and Reporting with Dr. Shaia, helped me build a knowledge of journalism law and for my publishing classes required for my English degree.

With a strong focus on grasping the finer rules of the English language, Dr. Shaia’s class taught me many “do’s” and “don’ts” commonly seen throughout journalism. Dr. Shaia’s newswriting class also helped me notice many of the careless errors made by young journalists, and the proper steps to prevent said errors.

Newswriting and Reporting helped myself and many writers in the class to recognize exceptional writing from insignificant writing. Learning to recognize quality writing is one of the most useful merits in any journalism-focused major and career. Recognizing a difference in quality is essential if you would ever like to succeed in working for a magazine or newspaper. This recognition of quality is essential, as it enables you to better yourself and develop your writing talents.

Business Writing for Every Major: An Interview with Dr. Cynthia Ryan

By Adele Leon

What is your professional identity? What can you do as a college student at UAB to start creating this identity? Where can you go to learn how to brand yourself? Dr. Cynthia Ryan’s Business Writing class can help you answer these questions.As a member of the Professional Writing Program at UAB, Dr. Ryan teaches students across the disciplines how to create their professional identities for years through a split-level class.

I Need this Class!

Dr. Ryan will likely be teaching Business Writing in Spring 2017. To be prepared for the class, Dr. Ryan says that you need to know what’s going on in the world, and every student should have a regular news feed of current events. This class is listed as an English class, but it is typically filled with students from the Business, Education, Psychology and Communications Departments—just to name a few. This class doesn’t just help students create professional identities; students who enroll in this course will also learn:

How to rhetorically connect to their own brands
How their personal slogans will make them stand out against the competition
How to connect their identities to any constituency

It is important to start developing your professional identity now while you are still a student. Taking this class will open your professional network to the Association for Business Communication, and provide you with an opportunity to join the Ethics Bowl Team at UAB.

This class also covers common skills every student should know in both professional and personal settings. Dr. Ryan teaches students how to operate in a corporate setting—from writing professional emails to presenting themselves professionally and delivering a complete strategy statement. These skills will help students navigate any corporate environment. Rhetorically, students who are enrolled in this class will a

dvance every aspect of their professional identities.

On a more personal level, this class will teach students how to negotiate—their interests, their personal presence, their goals—to succeed in their own branding.

Corporate Communication Textbook — “Corporate Communication” by Paul A. Argenti

Now picture yourself in a classroom full of people like you—people who are ready to start building their professional images. You are looking at Corporate Communication by Paul A. Argenti.

Dr. Ryan walks in and asks you, “What is your professional identity? How will you present that identity in your career?”

How will you answer?

Dr. Ryan will teach you how to answer those questions successfully. Dr. Ryan already has advice for you right now: The key to being successful in 2016 is being able to adapt your professional presence to all genres and conventions of the corporate world. But there are no hard and fast rules in business writing.

Generally, every genre of business writing changes depending on the context. For example, there is no existing standard for memos or business letters that is consistent on Google.

This class will give you more than just example memos and business letters, it will teach you how to navigate different types of corporate climates. But most importantly, Dr. Ryan will ask you to work from your own interests so you can build the professional identity you want for yourself.

If you want to get to know Dr. Ryan a little more before you sign up for her class, check out her blog. You’ll read about how she survived cancer, her travels and how she uses her personal identity to guide the life she wants to live.

Providing Peace of Mind

By Michelle Love

University Writing Center sign — The UWC, located in Sterne Library

As a student’s academic career progresses, the amount of research papers and related stress follows suit. It does not help that the list of rules when writing research papers seems to always be changing.

Thanks to UAB’s University Writing Center (located on the first floor of the Mervyn Sterne Library), students no longer have to feel alone.

How We Help You

By using face to face and online counseling, the University Writing Center helps students create polished papers to get the best grade possible and in the process teaches students helpful writing tips that will improve their overall performance.

UAB professor Jaclyn Wells is the Director of the writing center and also one of the many tutors offering guidance. “We have three types of folks [offering services]. We have adjunct instructors from the English department, we have grad students from the English department, and we have undergraduate students that serve as friendly greeters when people come in.”

No One Left Behind

While some younger students may believe they do not qualify for the center’s resources, Dr. Wells wants them to know that is simply not true. She said the center is open to students of all levels, whether freshmen or graduate students, and all majors. Students are also encouraged to bring in their papers no matter what stage the assignment is in.

“Some people have this idea that they can’t come to the writing center until their paper is finished, and that’s not true. We encourage people to come to the writing center during any stage of their paper writing. They can come in with an idea or they can come in in the middle. It really does not matter. We just want to help you.”

Providing Opportunities

Recently, the UWC has started offering an internship program in coordination with UAB’s internship director Cynthia Ryan. “If students want to intern here they have to take the Tutoring Writing class and then they can follow up with Dr. Ryan.”

Consultations are available by appointment and Dr. Wells wants any students skeptical of visiting the writing center to know that there’s nothing to be ashamed or afraid of.

“Everybody needs feedback on writing,” she said. “It’s not just a beginner thing. And by coming to the writing center, you’re doing what good writers do. Good writers get feedback, good writers revise. So when you come here you’re already doing what a good writer does just by virtue of coming here.”

Why It Is Important

As a Professional Writing major and aspiring writer, I feel that the University Writing Center is more than just a valuable asset to a young writer’s career: it should be considered a requirement.

It’s easy for students to feel safe with their writing style while they’re still enrolled in school and believe they don’t need help polishing their composition. But as someone who has taken the plunge into the professional writing world outside of an academic setting, I can say that going to the writing center is vital to creating a more sophisticated writing style.

The UWC staff will teach you the do’s and don’t’s of being a writer, and can help you grow a thicker skin when it comes to taking constructive criticism. I believe everyone should visit the writing center, if not for the sake of your college writing, then for any future job prospects you may have after graduation.

Why Do We Give a CRAP?

By Luke Richey

Discovering Design

Visual Rhetoric Flyer — Visual Rhetoric flyer

Design permeates virtually all aspects of professional communication—from writing resumés, memos and cover letters to pitching a new product line or advertising an upcoming event. How that information looks matters and can be the difference between it being picked up or thrown away.

Backtrack to Fall 2014, when I had just entered my first professional writing course at UAB and was asked to design the cover for that issue of MEMORANDUM with absolutely no idea what or how to design.

Being a complete novice at the medium, I searched for help anywhere I could find it. Between Robin Williams’ (not the comedian) book, The Non-Designer’s Design Book, and a fellow UAB student and graphic design major, I learned a few tips that could help any professional writing student who wants to start dabbling in design.

Williams stresses the need, when designing, to make CRAP—but the good kind of CRAP. Williams’ CRAP stands for Contrast, repetition, Alignment and Proximity. Which, in a nutshell, means:

make the design stand out and create an impression on the viewer
introduce and repeat common themes throughout the work
do not throw space on the page haphazardly
organize elements in a way that makes the design “flow” well

When designing, a balance between consistency and contrast creates an effective and appealing design that grabs the viewer’s attention and keeps them interested. When designing, nothing should be arbitrary. Words, images, figures, etc. should work well together to enhance the composition rather than of weaken it.

Identify, Inspect, Innovate

From the graphic design student, whose name unfortunately eludes me, I learned to play with colors and fonts, get inspiration from other sources, and make the design unique—tailoring it to my own preferences.

Design can be fun; don’t be afraid to play around and look for things that appeal to you. And yes, it’s alright to look at other designs and other people’s work. This inspiration can spark a concept—an image—that takes from that design and works well with what’s already visualized in your head.

Finally, remember to create your own brand, a design that is unique to you and your personality. Just like writing, creating a design that does not fit you can come off as stale and uninteresting. Trial and error is always a part of the process and will make your designs that much better.

If you’re interested in understanding more of the basics concerning the four principles of design, Williams’ book can be purchased here.

Braving the Professional Writing Department

writing in a notebook — My first professional writing class

By Anne Marie Lovell

As someone who is not an English major, signing up for a professional writing class can be intimidating. I was nervous not only because I am an Art major, but also because it had been years since I’d written anything that could be described as professional.

What would it be like to be in a class full of people who’d been honing their writing skills in college via beautifully crafted essays, with nothing to offer in comparison aside from my rough, run-on sentences?

Before finding the proper resources and receiving encouragement, I doubt I would have enrolled in any of these classes. Now, I am planning to get a minor in professional writing.

Professional writing is something that non-English majors can benefit from, but that many probably haven’t heard of. It isn’t only about writing and editing articles; the professional writing department includes classes on medical, business and technical writing. You can learn how to build a website or how to develop digital documents.

The professional writing club even hosts resume and cover letter workshops—something that all students could use. The professional writing minor (or even just a class) is something that any future professional should seriously consider.

I was lucky to have been told to look into writing classes by my academic advisor. After some research, I found Dr. McComiskey, who is both the contact and director for the Professional Writing program. I wrote to him, explaining that I was an art major interested in taking one or two classes to work on my writing skills, and I promptly received a response.

He told me about classes that would be offered in the upcoming semester, as well as other classes that would be offered in the future. Dr. McComiskey also suggested that I consider the minor in Professional Writing, which was something I never would have done on my own.

With the encouragement of my academic advisor, the helpful email from Dr. McComiskey and a little bit of nervousness, I signed up for my first professional writing class. A few weeks in, I’ve realized that this is something that many students should be doing. Instead of intimidating, the class is interesting, and will no doubt be of help when applying to jobs. I earnestly suggest ignoring any fear of writing you may have, and to look into these classes yourself.