professional writing

Antagonizing & Tailoring LLM Writing in a Mock Public Relations Crisis Management Campaign for Business Communication Classes

Activities, critical thought and analysis, digital literacy, genAI, observation, Process, professional writing, rhetorical situation, writing myths and anxiety, writing technologies /

Amanda Rioux Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description This Business Communication in-class activity uses a sample case study in which an imaginary company had a public fallout, with the purpose of students developing and refining the skills needed to regain trust and goodwill amongst the company’s various stakeholders—both internally within the company itself, and externally […]

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Documenting Campus Spaces: The Collaborative Accessibility Guide Assignment

Accessibility, Assignments, collaboration and group work, critical thought and analysis, genre and discourse community, professional writing, technical writing, visual/multimodal rhetorics /

Marie Pruitt Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description The Collaborative Accessibility Guide (CAG) assignment was originally designed for an upper-level writing course, Technical and Scientific Writing, taught at a Predominantly White Institution (PWI) and large public research university. However, this assignment can easily be adapted for any technical or professional writing course. Over the course

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Framing Bad News: Hedging, Voice, and HR Memos

Activities, collaboration and group work, Critical Language Awareness, drafting and revising, genre and discourse community, grammar and mechanics, peer review, professional writing, reflection, rhetorical situation, technical writing /

Chris Mayer Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description This two-class sequence, which is an ideal fit for professional writing or business communication courses, helps students see how grammatical and lexical choices shape the ethical and practical work of workplace communication. The project culminates in students drafting a one-page memo delivering bad news through announcing policy

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Owning the Process: Co-Learning AI Through Critical Inquiry and Workflow Literacy

Activities, collaboration and group work, critical thought and analysis, digital literacy, genAI, information literacy, Process, professional writing, writing technologies /

Jennifer N. Mason Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description This in-class activity invites students and instructors to co-investigate how generative AI and other writing technologies shape composing processes across academic and professional contexts. The activity is grounded in workflow literacy—defined here as the reflective practice of analyzing how tasks, tools, technologies, and collaborators interact across

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Using Community Listening to Collaboratively Develop an Assignment with Students

Activities, collaboration and group work, Community-engaged writing, demystifying writing assignments, professional writing, writing myths and anxiety /

Gabrielle Isabel Kelenyi Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description Assignments often take a few iterations to get just right so that students consistently produce the essay, project, or presentation the instructor had in mind, let alone demonstrate the assignment’s learning objectives. What would happen if instructors modeled “community listening” (Jackson & Whitehorse DeLaune; Rowan &

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Convincing the Machine: Using Rhetoric to Get the Most Out of AI Writing Assistants in Proposal Writing

Assignments, digital literacy, genAI, identity, information literacy, professional writing, rhetorical situation, writing technologies /

Ronald B. Cole, Lauren N. Maher, and Rich Rice Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description This assignment teaches students to treat generative AI as a rhetorical collaborator that must be convinced through recursive prompting, strategic data curation, and continuous adjustment. Students assume the role of grant writers advocating for a project, community, or initiative of

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Brand Style Guide Assignment

digital literacy, professional writing, rhetoric, rhetorical appeals and argument, technical writing, visual/multimodal rhetorics, writing technologies /

Madeleine Sorapure Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description The Brand Style Guide (BSG) is a common genre for organizations both large and small. It establishes a verbal and visual style that employees can apply in print and digital communications, yielding consistency across different expressions of the brand. Creating a BSG is therefore a good fit

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Proposal for Change on Campus

Assignments, collaboration and group work, Community-engaged writing, genre and discourse community, Place-based Writing, problem-solving proposal, professional writing /

Sarah Swofford Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description The purpose of this assignment is three-fold: 1) it helps students execute prior knowledge about genre so they are able to effectively compose unfamiliar genres of writing; 2) shows students how their writing skills are useful in professional and not only academic contexts; and 3) teaches students

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Writing, Translating, and Revising Menus: An International Virtual Exchange Project

Community-engaged writing, Critical Language Awareness, genre and discourse community, linguistic difference, linguistic diversity, professional writing, Translation, translingualism, writing in global contexts, writing technologies /

Massimo Verzella Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description This assignment is informed by a pedagogical tradition that emphasizes the connections between the fields of writing and translation (Matsuda; Horner and Tetreault), a connection that becomes even more relevant in technical communication (Gnecchi et al.; Petts et al.). Just like writing, translation is process-based, iterative, and

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Let’s Party: Composing a Review of the Literature on a Technical Topic

Process, professional writing, research, secondary source research, Synthesis, technical writing, Volume 6 /

Daniel P. Richards Volume 6 Chapter Description A literature review can take many forms and can be found in a wide array of academic, scientific, technical, and workplace documents spanning all fields and disciplines. Sometimes it is the full document; sometimes it is but part of a document. From essays in philosophy to journal articles

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