What you can expect to take away from an academic quarter in English 318…

Here’s how the 2001 Cal Poly Catalog describes English 318: "Professional writing as produced in industry and government. Analytic reports, manuals, instructions, specifications. Trade journal articles. Editing skills. Orientation to professional careers."

This sounds like a compendium of what you’ve learned in your other professional writing classes, doesn’t it? It should. This class asks you to apply what you’ve learned in other writing classes. We’ll be undertaking real projects for real clients. These projects may include anything or everything described in the Cal Poly Catalog, along with web page development, brochures, pamphlets, or even atypical writing formats like press kits, signs, maps, or…well…, you name it; we might do it! Any “real world” professional writing job could become one of our projects this quarter.

Note: How much value the class has for you depends not just on the text, the instructor, and what happens in class, but also on the attitude you bring to class. Your attitude is yours to control; you own your attitude! Any time you’ve learned a lot from a class, you learned only because you came to class to learn. Your first task in this (or any) class will be to determine whether the class offers value for you… material that would be worth your effort to learn. Bottom line? Unless you come to class prepared to learn something, your chances for learning anything are nil.

Jim Howland

 

 

 

 

 

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Technical Communication Program | English Department | Cal Poly