Volume 9 Issue 1 – MEMORANDUM

How my Professional Writing Classes Prepared me for an Internship

By Lainey Hardiman

Four years ago, I never imagine I would graduate with a degree in English, let alone anything to do with writing. I wanted to be a high school math teacher and inspire students to love math. Writing wasn’t supposed to be my thing—until I found Professional Writing.

Like you’ll read throughout this magazine, someone with a Professional Writing degree can achieve more than just writing. Students can choose a career in digital design, coding, social media, marketing, publishing, editing, etc.—there isn’t a limit to what you can do with a degree like this.

GirlSpring (https://www.girlspring.com/)

This semester, I interned with the non-profit organization GirlSpring, an online magazine curated by teen girls, for teen girls. I wasn’t just writing copy; it was an editorial internship where I read, edited, and published articles into the organization’s online magazine.

But it wasn’t about an individual article. When editing each one, I constantly referenced the overall design of the magazine: the colors, the layout, the headings, and the images. It was more about the overall; each one had to be cohesive with the whole magazine.

Developing Digital Documents and Digital Publishing are two professional writing courses offered at UAB that I took and loved. Developing Digital Documents introduces students to technologies like Adobe’s Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop. Each heavily used in the design world and very helpful for any college student.

Digital Publishing introduces students more to the digital world and provides a basis for how websites are built and designed. It introduces students to Adobe Dreamweaver, HTML, CSS, and WordPress. Coding is a big part of this course, and it is by far my favorite thing I have learned.

In each class, there are specific rules for everything. We stress contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity, or how we like to call it, “CRAP.” Of course, my mathematical brain loved the rules and how each perfectly formulated line of code or combination of design elements and text joined to create a seamless, overall design. All these choices combine to help viewers engage with and read the page or document we design and write.

At GirlSpring, I utilized CRAP every time I edited an article; I even coded a few links in the captions of images. My Professional Writing classes taught me how to write concisely, and I am constantly editing for clear and concise language in articles to ease readability. Subheadings have become my best friend over the semester because of how much they improve readability and overall flow of the document.

I couldn’t tell you how many times I would preview one article and then change bullet points or numbered lists just to allow for easier eye movement down the page. Just like we learned in the classes, I think about how a viewer would experience each article. How would they receive the information? Would it be engaging enough to keep them on the page and keep reading?

According to those questions, the decisions I make about the text and design stem from Developing Digital Documents and Digital Publishing. Without these two classes I wouldn’t have started my internship with a leg-up in navigating and utilizing WordPress or recognized how valuable simple design changes are to a website or magazine.

The knowledge I had regarding the digital space before these classes was terrifyingly close to nothing. I gained the confidence I needed to succeed in my digital and remote internship from my experience in both Developing Digital Documents and Digital Publishing. Without them, I don’t know what I would’ve done.

The Value of Internships and Jobs for Professional Writing Students

By Annie Swantek

How far does a bachelor’s degree really go? Many college students may not consider what they are going to include on their résumé before creating one. Or they think that earning a degree and taking courses related to their desired career field is enough. Having a college education is a critical factor on résumé’s, however it is often not enough to catch an employer’s eye.

What an Education in English brings you

Being an English major and a senior at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), I have been able to greatly enhance my writing skills, develop other beneficial skills, and gain knowledge on topics I was previously unaware of. The English Department at the UAB is well versed and offers its students an exceptional education. Students striving to earn a Bachelors in English are offered an amazing range of courses as well as amazing faculty to teach those courses.

Getting an education in English will prepare students with the basic skill set and knowledge they need to succeed in a writing career. However, internships and part-time jobs while in college are a key factor in a student’s success with finding a job after graduation.

Beyond the Degree

If a student majoring in English is planning on pursuing a writing career or searching for a job in the communications or writing field, it is beneficial for them to have experience to put on their résumé. Having a bachelor’s degree and the skills and experience from UAB’s English courses are valuable and important to note when creating a resume or talking to future employers.

However, the specific field of professional writing requires experience with many different applications and additional skills beyond being able to write remarkably and efficiently. While many professors do inform their students of this and introduce them to these types of applications, skills, and tasks that employers require for any writing position, students often do not get enough experience to list it on their résumé as a skill.

Having exposure to a professional work environment and seeing first-hand the types of tasks that writers complete is a very beneficial experience to have. Actually gaining experience allows students to go beyond just learning about it in a classroom and actually living it and doing hands on work that will help them in the future.

Student Internships & Jobs

Since I am a senior, I have started my job searching journey. I am mainly looking at Technical Writing, Copy Writing, Editing, and any related positions. I have noticed a trend that almost all of the job postings I have looked at require or strongly prefer for applicants to have a bachelor’s degree as well as at least 1 year of experience.

Not having job experience does not necessarily mean that employers will not look at your Résumé or that you can not find a good job, it does mean that having relevant work experience greatly increases your chances of getting responses from employers and catching their eye with your résumé.

I am an English major; Business Administration minor and I am concentrating in professional writing. I knew that I wanted to pursue a career in professional writing when I chose my major but did not know the exact steps I needed to take or how to achieve that. I knew that my college courses had allowed me to develop valuable skills, but I was still anxious and worried about finding a job or being able to succeed at a job after graduation.

Before the Spring Semester of 2020, I got an email from the Undergraduate English Majors Resources informing students of an on campus, part-time, student Technical Writing position. I figured I would apply for the job and see what happens because it seemed like a good fit, and I knew that having this experience would look good on my résumé and better prepare me for the future. I ended up getting hired at UAB’s Computer Forensics Research Lab (CFRL) as a Technical Writer, I have about a full year of experience since I started my junior year and will be leaving after graduation as it is a student job.

Benefits of Student Jobs

The entrance to the Facebook Suite section of UAB’s Computer Forensic Research Lab, the main lobby, of the lab.

My part time Technical Writing job experience at the CFRL has allowed me to grow as a writer, editor, and even as a student and teacher at times. My main task is to review and edit reports that are written by the lab’s analysts. While reviewing all reports is the main priority, there are many other side duties and tasks that come along with being a Technical Writer. With this specific job I also had to participate in writing workshops where my supervisor and I taught lessons to the analysts on how to improve their writing and what their reports should look like and include.

Teaching writing workshops to the analysts at the lab was very rewarding and allowed me to grow as a person. I was tasked with reading the book, Communicating with Intelligence: Writing and Briefing for National Security by James S. Major and creating PowerPoint based on the material in the book. I had never had the experience of presenting information in this manner or teaching others how to write. I never enjoyed giving presentations in school and always preferred to sit quietly and learn rather than speak up with questions or opinions, this experience helped me to come out of my shell and feel more confidently about speaking in group settings.

The CFRL writes Intelligence Writing style reports that are written in a specific format and that get sent out to clients. I had never seen this particular kind of writing before and was not very familiar with the subjects of the reports. However, being able to see other kinds of writing besides academic writing has broadened knowledge and skill set. I can now tell future employers that I have experience with reviewing and editing cyber crime related reports, even if the company has nothing to do with computer forensics this still shows them that I have experience with multiple types of writing styles and that I can easily adapt to different types of content.

Networking is another benefit of having internships and part time jobs while in college. Sometimes acquiring jobs depends on who you know. If you are working or interning at a company as a Technical Writer, or related position, you are likely to meet others with that job title and similar interests as you. Not only is this a way to gain friends and socialize with others who may be similar to you, it is also a way to lead to future jobs. People at the company may know friends or family whose company or office is looking for someone who can write, they may think about the Technical Writing intern at their company and give you a referral.

It all comes back to experience. having the experience of being around different types of people and work environments gives you the ability to tell future employers about it. Maybe your student job was remote, and you are looking for only remote positions, now you can tell employers you have excellent time management skills and work well independently because you have had the experience of working in a remote position already. Or, maybe your internship was in an office and required a lot of collaborative work, you now have the ability to show off your ability to work as a team member in a busy work environment.

Receiving an education at UAB and earning a Bachelors in English are amazing accomplishments that employers will be impressed with. However, having internships and jobs related to your desired field as a college student is an extremely valuable and beneficial experience that will help you moving forward with your future and career.

Non-Traditional Students and UAB’s New Normal

By Jazzlyn Miller

“Remote learning” by The Open University (OU) is marked with CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been difficult for everyone. Students, including professional writing students, are no exception. Everyone has had to adjust to the “new normal”, and institutions like UAB are attempting to make that adjustment as comfortable as possible for everyone. However, in this process, it seems that the difficulties of some students are not being totally addressed.

Non-traditional students are, exactly like it sounds, students who do not attend college in the traditional manner. Some are transfer students, who have attended either a community college or four-year university before changing schools to their current university. Others may be students who chose to live off-campus rather than in dorms like many undergraduate students. Many of those reading this article right now may be non-traditional students, who may feel as though their struggles have been ignored in this transition period.

Non-traditional students from all backgrounds and subjects of study have faced their own unique set of difficulties during the pandemic, that often go unseen. To get more information about how they are being impacted, I interviewed a few classmates who are non-traditional students, to see how they have felt about UAB’s adjustment to life during COVID-19. Of course, like any group of people, they all had differing views on some aspects. However, there was a lot of common ground shared by all of the interviewees.

One of the most cited issues during the pandemic was, of course, the difficulty of remote courses. Most of the students I interviewed cited an extreme difficulty in transitioning to courses being held online using technology like Zoom. Despite the seemingly “face-to-face” nature of video meetings, and the fact that they can be more amendable to the schedules of off-campus students, many cited a strong sense of discomfort with taking classes this way. One of my interviewees, Emma Herr, said “most of the time it felt alienating and unsatisfying.” This was a common refrain, many arguing that it made them feel disengaged from their courses, and from their classmates and professors.

This disconnect didn’t just take an emotional toll on these students, though that aspect shouldn’t be understated. It also caused many students to have difficulties with keeping up with their actual coursework. One student, Andrew Ritchey, discussed difficulties with some kinds of courses being taught remotely. According to him, "[s]ome classes, such as drawing, are just not easy to teach over a camera, and as a result, I didn’t learn as well in that class."

Not only do some subjects just not translate to being taught remotely, many of the interview subjects also cited a requirement of a lot more initiative from students, which can make it really easy to get behind on coursework like readings and homework. This learning disconnect is a serious problem, that could have caused some serious gaps in student’s knowledge about the subjects they study.

This can be compounded by another disconnect, between students and their professors. Many students may have problems reaching out to professors about information they didn’t understand or confusion they may feel about a topic. This can be even worse when students feel they do not know their professors at all, as in the case of online or remote classes. Since returning to campus, many of these issues have started to change. Since we are all on campus full time again at UAB, there is no need to consider how classes taught over Zoom affect students. All of the students I interview also mentioned that their feelings of engagement increased dramatically after their return to campus. Sonia Datnow, another student, said that to her returning to campus felt exactly like it had pre-pandemic.

However, while the circumstances have largely returned to normal for many students, that does not negate the impact of the problems caused by the pandemic. While a return to campus means an increase in student engagement, a stronger sense of community, much more in-person instruction, and less Zoom classes, that doesn’t undo every problem that these students have been facing.

For those that have had difficulties with their coursework caused by remote classes, those gaps in their knowledge remain. If they passed their classes, but still have some concepts and ideas that they don’t grasp, this can cause a problem if that knowledge is going to be built upon later. This is especially an issue for many newer college students, who are likely to have been learning the basics of their subjects of study.

There are also likely many non-traditional students returning to campus with no ties to any student organizations, any of their classmates, or to their professors. While they can begin to build those connections now– and my interviewees say that they are– that is still a loss of time in comparison to students who were able to establish those connections before the pandemic, and especially when compared to students who live on campus and have many more opportunities to engage.

Though non-traditional students are typically not the students who people think of first, the issues they face are important to discuss when attempting to address the issues caused by the pandemic. Not only do they face the issues already discussed, but many are returning with increased stressors that make focusing on coursework and returning to campus even more difficult than for traditional students, such as financial difficulties also caused by the pandemic.

In trying to understand the way that the pandemic affected students, it is necessary that we consider non-traditional students, their unique struggles, and the ways that the common issues from the pandemic are compounded for them.

What is Markdown?

By John Channell

Part of this Article in the Markdown Language

Markdown is a Markup language, which may seem confusing from the name of the language. Like HTML, Markdown is a language used to better format information for the general consumer.

A few reasons why Markdown is important in the grand scheme of professional writing is the ability to post information to website applications such as WordPress. For the coding, websites such as GitHub will use Markdown as the general file language to brief the users on what exactly they are looking at. Including more information, this article will also have a small tutorial so you can familiarize yourself with the Markdown language.

The most common editor for the Markdown language is known as the What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG). This is used by websites such as WordPress and is a handy tool for looking to get content out quickly. Alongside WordPress, many websites such as Reddit or Discord will also use Markdown, or a generalized version of it, to help users get their point across. Coding software including Visual Studio Code, Atom, Sublime Text , and even something basic like Notepad or TextEdit can also be used for Markdown. The beauty of Markdown is how simplistic it is to edit things together. It doesn’t take hours upon hours of learning a language.

What do you need to get started with Markdown? Honestly, not much, just some kind of editor and the syntax (keyword) guide. For better seeing and understanding Markdown, Dillinger might be your best choice as it is made precisely for Markdown. For further reading on the Markdown language, the free and open-source reference guide will be your best bet. Head to The Markdown Guide’s website to see more of the entire language.

While looking at Markdown in a code editor, it is purely what you type in, without much formatting. If you want to bold some text, you need to put two * characters so the language can interact with it.

The same goes for italics, but that will only require one * character. These are the simple syntax characters that you should learn as they might be the most used characters when writing in Markdown.

Thanks to the different applications, you can write simple code blocks to make it easier to read, which is why it is the preferred language of websites such as GitHub.

```html
<p>For example, this is some HTML code built into the language. The only thing that 
renders is the code, and it <b>does not</b> get processed.</p>
```

Within professional writing, learning Markdown can be a beneficial skill. Many publishing websites will most likely still use Markdown or a version of it. Learning it early can put you leaps and bounds above some competition that has not started to delve into the Markdown language.

Next time you’re working on some article, try to convert it to Markdown if you have free time. Learning Markdown is one skill you will not regret learning.

Journalism and Professional Writing

By Taylor Hanson

“I am finally out of college, ready to build a career as a writer, and start a new chapter in my life.” This is what many aspiring professional writers say as they take their first steps towards building their career. But what does a career for a journalist and aspiring writer look like?

Before taking these initial steps, it is important to know how to obtain a career and what requirements there are, as well as duties you will perform. This is why I decided to research what kind of jobs are available for journalism and creative writing, as well as the requirements they prefer.

I also found that being familiar with other writers and their work improves your own. Performing marketing and editing tasks to get a book published, as well as work with co-writers and editors is important for development. This aids creative writers but also others whose work involves writing.

Life as a writer

I conducted an interview with a relative, Becca, who has two books published and a lot of experience in performing duties as a writer. Her occupation is a sociologist who conducts qualitative research. In this career, one must perform a lot of data analysis and writing based on the data collected while conducting research.

I asked her what education she has for her career, “I received training in my master’s program in Social Sciences at the University of Chicago and my PhD program in Sociology at University of Georgia.” These were the first steps in her career in research and data analysis, and how to publish about her research.

According to Becca, she did not receive much training on how to write books in these programs. Instead, she learned how to write by, “looking at other authors I admired, reading their books not only with an eye towards substance but structure and style.” She also mentioned that co-authoring has been extremely helpful to her as it has allowed her to work with others in her field with more experience and learn how they write.

“At the end of the day, writing is about producing a lot of material you will never use, editing, writing, and rewriting. It is having the patience and commitment to return to the same chapters over and over again to improve phrasing, organization, and flow. Those are probably the most useful skills I have ever learned while writing these three books.”

Becca informed me that academic publishing is different from fiction or non-academic publishing. For her publishing process, Becca prepares a book prospectus consisting of 5-10 pages, which provides a summary of the book’s arguments, a breakdown of its chapters, presentation of the book’s contributions relating to other scholars, and finally, a biographical sketch that positions her as an expert in her field.

During the interview I learned that having connections with editors helps the publishing process. Becca met two editors she has worked with at academic conferences, and she has cultivated a relationship with another editor for years. In her explanation of getting books published, Becca informed me, “Once you have a contract with a book publisher, it is completely up to you to produce a manuscript that can be sent out for review. So, it is important to be well-organized and plan ahead so you can complete the project on time.” Her advice for future job seekers? “Get involved in groups and events that are organized around your profession of interest as soon as you can.”

Job Searching

I wanted to see what kinds of jobs might be available to aspiring writers, so I researched job advertisements on Indeed.com, Salary.com and Simplyhired.com , which are highly recommended sites for job-searching. General Assignment Reporter for 1819 News, one of the jobs on their site, requires 3-5 years of experience covering news for online publication, a bachelor’s degree in journalism (preferred but not required), and experience in journalism (three years is preferred). Tasks include writing stories to attract readers to expand 1819 News, collaborating with editors, and producing different news features as well as analysis of complex issues.

Digital Copywriter with Strong Automotive Merchandising, the second job advertisement I found, requires a bachelor’s degree in English, journalism or writing. The employers prefer their applicants to have at least one year of experience in copywriting. Employees will perform responsibilities such as creating blog posts, working closely with Content Marketing Coordinators, proofreading, and editing content, and digital reporting.

The last job I found was a novel writing job for eGlobal Creative Publishing, requiring no prior experience except writing. Tasks include writing about fantasy, fiction, romance, video games, LGBTQ+ issues, and many more topics. This would be. I found many jobs that piqued my interest, which provided comfort that there are opportunities for those of us pursuing a writing career. I recommend these sites for anyone in search of a job if you aren’t sure where to start.

Learning how to find the information needed to pursue a career is essential for me as a creative writing major and aspiring journalist, but also for other careers. Pursuing a career requires this kind of research early in life to make sure you are taking the steps that will help to build your specific career. It is helpful to know what kind of jobs are available, what is required to obtain them, and what tasks you will perform to make sure the job fits your interest.

While performing my job search analysis, I had difficulty finding the exact jobs that fit a creative writing concentration. There are a lot of jobs available for diverse writers in many concentrations, such as proposal writers, proofreaders, and news reporters. I learned not only that there are many different careers for writing, but many that require different expertise.

Using What You Know

After my research, I now know what a creative writer and journalist needs to focus their degree on, what duties will be performed as a professional writer, and what jobs are available. I also learned how to gain connections and build my way in the writing industry successfully. In all, I believe this process provides clarity, understanding, and self-discovery. I was able to discover what kind of future I can have, as well as how to pursue it correctly.

Before conducting research for this article, I was unsure of what it meant to be a journalist, and even less sure of what kind of journalist I wanted to be. Following Becca’s advice, making connections, staying consistent and dedicated, and preparing to create a lot of content to continuously recreate will help me and anyone in this occupation become successful as a writer.

I hope this helps anyone wanting to pursue a professional writing career. These steps I took to gain a better understanding of what a writing career looks like and how to obtain it are helpful steps for anyone searching for a career. Job sites such as Indeed.com and Simplyhired.com are helpful sites to find job advertisements, but there are many other sites available if those do not meet your expectations.

Gain connections and talk to your teachers for advice on achieving a successful writing career. There are never-ending sources, and no one can stop you from becoming who you want to be. “Talking with people working towards the same goals, or people who are already working in the profession, helps you prepare but also develop networks and a base of support.” (Becca Hanson).