Professional and Public Writing
The Bachelor of Arts degree in Professional and Public Writing (P2W) is a versatile degree in which students learn to write in and across a range of contexts. The program prepares writers for a number of different roles:
- Professional Writers: Our program supports students interested in becoming professional writers. Students can study writing across a broad spectrum of areas: e.g., content writing, medical writing, technical communication, corporate writing, science writing, grant and proposal development, policy writing, and copyediting and acquisitions work in publishing, and other fields.
- Professionals Who Write: Our program focuses not only on professional writers, BUT also professionals who write. No matter what students’ professions or industries they will need writing as part of their work. We prepare students for writing in varied professional and disciplinary contexts. Students can fine-tune coursework to match and fit their specific interests. P2W is also ideal for a double major or a Minor in Writing.
- Writers in the Public Sphere: Our program focuses not only on professional spaces, but also the public sphere and the common good. Students will learn to mobilize their writing skills to engage with communities and contribute to solving social problems. This community-engaged work includes writing within and for advocacy organizations and nonprofits.
Who are Professional and Public Writing Students?
Students studying P2W are creative thinkers and community leaders, interested in gaining advanced skills in writing for and with people online and in print. Our program gives students exposure to many aspects of career and civic writing, including community research, audience analysis, drafting and revision, editing and typesetting, project management, publication, digital rhetoric, and multimodal composition. Due to the flexible nature of the major, P2W students can design their own course path toward a wide range of careers or graduate programs.
Our Approach
Our approach to writing in professional and public contexts integrates a number of key aspects:
- Storytelling: Our writing classes teach students to design effective stories. All organizations and professions profit from good storytelling: an entrepreneur crafting a pitch for venture capital funding; a lawyer telling a story about a client in court; a social advocate telling a story about the environment; or a corporation telling a story about its quarterly earnings.
Sample course: WRA 480 Publication Management. Students have opportunities to write stories and produce a student-managed publication, The Current. - Professional and Disciplinary Literacies: Our writing classes engage students in exploring and practicing how writing functions in specific majors and professions, and across various institutional and organizational contexts.
Sample course: WRA 333 Writing in Corporate Contexts. Students have opportunities to practice messaging in corporate contexts. - Multimodality: Our writing classes create opportunities to play, design, and work with a variety of rich media and modes: podcasts, videos, websites, social media sites, flyers, DIY crafts, and other multimodal forms of communication.
Sample Courses: WRA 225 Writing with Video. Students analyze and compose digital video for professional and public contexts. WRA 491 DIY + Craft Rhetorics: Students explore do-it-yourself crafting and making (from collage and embroidery to zines and printmaking) through rhetorical, queer, and feminist lenses. - Community Engagement: Our writing classes offer opportunities to write for and within communities and cultures in the local East Lansing area, the state of Michigan, and across the world. Central to the program’s approach is a focus on the common good, and ethically and responsibly engaging with local communities and cultures.
Sample Course: WRA 491 Writing Inside. Students facilitate writing workshops and conduct writing consultations with incarcerated individuals at the Parnell facility in Jackson, MI.
- Human-Centeredness: Our writing classes adopt a human-centered approach for making writing accessible to a range of audiences. This includes communicating technical information to non-technical audiences with opportunities to create user manuals, reports, policies, procedures, and other forms of documentation and information systems.
Sample Courses: WRA 320 Technical Communication. Students learn principles and practices of communicating technical and procedural information for different audiences. WRA 482 Information and Interaction Design. Students learn a people-centered approach to information systems design, as they are challenged to think beyond the screen—to the built environment, digital devices, and the communities they shape.
- Generative Artificial Intelligence: Expertise in writing in the world of AI is critical. The P2W Program gives students opportunities to explore the ways in which generative AI technologies are changing and will continue to change how writing and communication are produced. It focuses on the ways in which writers can engage in rhetorical strategies to use AI to understand, assess, and produce effective messages. Students learn to identify and articulate best practices for using AI in workplace and other types of writing, ensuring effective and ethical application of AI technologies.
Sample Course: WRA 308 Invention in Writing: Composing with AI Technologies.