Category: assignments

Ethics and Professional Writing

The departmental course goals for both technical writing and business writing indicate that students taking the courses will “Interpret research findings with understanding of ethical and human implications.” The developing general education curriculum (AKA Pathways) also encourages teachers to include…

Writing Effective Email Messages

I like to give special attention to how to write effective email messages early in the term. It’s information that will serve students well in their careers, but just as importantly, it increases the professionalism in the emails that students…

Simplifying the First Days

Once upon a time, everyone came to class on the first day ready to work. Students had the books in hand, and they were ready to dive right into the course. A few might have even read the book before…

Outside Genre Capstone Assignment

There’s new content in the the department’s Google Drive collection. Dr. Paul Heilker has shared a capstone assignment on outside genres, which he has used in 3104: Intro to Professional Writing and 3764: Technical Writing. The assignment asks students to…

Using a Spreadsheet Assignment

Okay, I don’t really love spreadsheets, but I do know that they are used frequently in the workplace for tasks that are not accounting-based. Whenever there is a table of data to be be created, a spreadsheet was usually the…

Professional Bio Assignment

I have endured far too many silly icebreakers activities in the workplace and as a volunteer. I remember one where you had to talk while you wrapped a string around your finger, stopping when the string ran out. Some seemed…

Trip Report Assignments

Every term, a handful of students tells me that they have professional obligations that will require them to miss a class meeting. They may be going to job interviews, career fairs, internship interviews, conferences, and so forth. Sometimes they have…