Writing for Professionals Course

The NSU Writing Center offers this certificate course in writing for professionals, who devalue – even destroy – their potential writing skills affected by myths and misunderstandings. Writing, professional writing in particular, is not an elitist art. It is, instead, an egalitarian craft we can learn to develop. Professional writing follows predictable patterns, built on a template of agreed-upon conventions. Developing a piece of writing from scratch is a guided journey this certificate course intends to cultivate. The course directs professionals back to the basics of writing: immersive reading, deep thinking, and compulsive editing. It is not research-intensive; it does, however, draw upon research in professional writing to help professionals appreciate both the mechanics and rhetoric of writing. They learn multi-drafting to incorporate critical intelligence, factual rigor, and semantic sophistication into every piece of writing they produce, whether it’s a memo, a report, an executive summary, or an e-mail. The classes are workshop-based, allowing the participants to experience writerly tensions and confusions – the obstacles novice writers use as excuses to give up writing, but professional writers treat as snags to overcome to accomplish it. At the end of the course, the participants are familiar with the essential theories of professional writing to undertake any piece of ​writing in an informed fashion. Completion of the course is contingent upon accomplishing and turning in multiple assignments.

This course is offered every semester by the NSU Writing Center, North South University.