English Class – Page 2

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.

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.

Career Spotlight: Online Content Editor

By Kalyn Wells

XML coding

With everything becoming more web-based, it is no surprise that there are more careers evolving around this medium in publishing today.

For example, online content editors spend most of their day creating content for the web. In addition to working with and adding content on the web, they must code their content with HTML and XML codes to properly publish it on the Internet. They strategically plan how the website should be laid out based on research and statistics of previous approaches the company has put forth on their website. So, getting to know the company and the company’s online history is a crucial part of this type of career.

Similar to most publishing careers, communication, research and proofreading are all skills an online content editor should acquire. An employer looking to hire an online content editor would look for these skills in a potential employee, but they would also look for a person who has developed coding and computer skills in order to successfully publish text and images onto the company’s website.

Creative Pool is a helpful site that gives more information about what online content editors do, what kind of environment they work in and more.

UAB offers courses in the Professional Writing curriculum that will help a student succeed in this type of career. There are courses such as Developing Digital Documents in which a student will learn more about Adobe software and how to construct a publication. Digital Publishing is another helpful course in which learning how to code for websites is one of the important objectives of the course.

You can find more Professional Writing course offerings in the UAB Catalog. A student could also take additional courses from the Communication Studies curriculum to help them gain more knowledge on the history of media.

Professional Writing for Individually Designed Majors

By Alexandria Smith

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock

As a student with an Individually Designed Major at UAB, I have specific career goals that required me to create my own course of study. I created the Cultural Communications major which combines Theater, English and Communications Studies. My ultimate goal is to do voiceovers for cartoons and write jingles for radio commercials.

While creating my curriculum, I thought it would be beneficial to add an edge to my coursework. This edge was provided through my professional writing classes.

From the Classroom

The Professional Writing program at UAB prepares students who have a desire to work with both print and digital formats. The professional writing program educates critical thinkers. Principles of rhetoric and language play a crucial role in academic, artistic, professional, personal and public settings. Having professional writing experience in the classroom provides me with skills that other majors might lack.

For example, in EH 315: Introduction to Professional Writing, my classmates and I created the brochure for the entire English Department. This is now the official brochure that is distributed to all freshmen upon entering orientation. Professional writing students learn the importance of:

Working in a team
Serving clients and customers
Exercising leadership
Negotiating
Dealing with diversity

To the Professional World

Professional writers have a wide range of other academic disciplines in the humanities, sciences and social sciences which makes them valuable. Through the professional writing program, I have learned how to communicate effectively to specific audiences, which is necessary in my future work. Writing jingles for radio commercials requires knowledge of the specific group you are trying to reach. My experience in the professional writing program has helped me focus on the audience I am trying to persuade so that I can convey my message clearly and effectively.

I’ve had the chance to work with multimodal presentations which allowed me to record my voice for a final presentation. Although it was not a silly cartoon, I still had the chance to do something that I love in a professional writing course.

Students with Individually Designed Majors should consider branching out while creating their curriculum. By including professional writing courses, I have learned valuable skills that I would lack if I did not participate in this program.