This document provides an overview of professional writing and discusses considerations for a capstone client project. It begins with icebreaker questions and a definition of professional writing as writing designed to do work. Various professional writing roles are listed such as copywriting, documentation, editing, content generation, design, social media, and PR. Flexibility in professional writing is noted but students are encouraged to consider their career goals. The document concludes by asking students to find a short YouTube video representing an idea and bring the link to the next class.

2. 1) Icebreaker
2) What is Professional Writing?
3) Starting to consider the client
project: a good video

3. Icebreaker:
What was the first piece of music
you bought with your own money?
Mine was:

4. You read a brief statement on PW written
by one of my favorite researchers in the
field, Stuart Selber.
Here’s my much-more-brief definition:
Professional writing is writing
that is designed and intended
to do work.

5. There’s a lot more to it than just
that, of course. There is subtlety and
nuance. There’s rhetoric and
multimodality. There’s so much to it.
But PW isn’t about style as much as
it is about substance. Think of Frank
Lloyd Wright, the famed architect:
Form follows function.

6. So What does a Professional Writer do?
[okay, maybe don’t call us all that?]

7. Copywriter

8. Documentation

9. Editing
[particularly copy editing]

10. Content generation

11. Print Design
[layout and content]

12. Web Design
[some coding]
[you should know some HTML]
[and CSS]

13. Social Media

14. Public Relations

15. Identity and Branding

16. Of course there are all the varieties of
technical writing as well, and you could teach
with a PW degree. You know, like I do.
It’s also a great foundational degree for
graduate and professional school.
It’s important to realize the flexibility that PW
offers, but at the same time, that means that
you have to think carefully about where you’re
going next.

17. While this class isn’t meant, as such, to be a career placement
moment or anything of the sort, as a capstone, before we dive
headfirst into our project, I do want you to think about how you
might want to shape your profile to go into whatever comes next for
you. That will help you to think about how you approach our task.
I want you to spend the rest of class writing. This is free writing, for
you. I will ask you to look at it later, to save it. In that writing, I want
you to write about what you’d like to do when you graduate. Be
specific. Jot down questions you might have.

18. For next class:
Find a video on YouTube that is between 30
seconds and 2 minutes long that you think is
effective at representing an idea or
organization. Bring the link to class on
Monday.