Professional Writing focuses on writing effectively for a range of careers, communities, and contexts. Professional Writing majors engage with writing as action, learning to write in print and digital genres in impactful, culturally responsive, and audience-centered ways. This is an ideal first or second major if you love to write, are interested in learning more about writing, want to develop excellent writing skills, and/or seek to use writing to make a difference in the world.
Career opportunities for Professional Writing graduates are extensive because they develop skills, knowledge, and experience sought by employers. In fact, writing is a top-5 skill sought by employers in the 2023 National Association of Colleges and Employers Job Outlook Survey.
Professional Writing alumni enter a variety of fields, including technical and freelance writing, corporate and organizational communications, marketing and social media, editing and publishing, education, and law.
I ultimately made the decision to attend Miami because of the Professional Writing major where I am able to express myself creatively while still learning the key parts of writing in professional contexts.
Becca Blanco, ’26
This 36-credit hour major offers a focused but flexible curriculum that allows you to tailor your studies to match your professional and academic interests and aspirations. Complete a core of five courses and then choose one of four tracks to specialize in:
As part of the major, you will participate in many seminar-style classes, where you can discuss and share writing with colleagues and faculty. The Professional Writing major also includes electives from other programs such as Creative Writing, Interactive Media Studies, Journalism, Linguistics, Literature, and Strategic Communications. In addition, you may (with prior arrangement with the Chief Department Advisor) have up to 6 credits in the degree be from an internship or employment experience.
As a Professional Writing major (or a Rhetoric and Writing minor), you have the flexibility to tailor the major to your interests. From the ancient rhetoric of Aristotle to contemporary social media, the curriculum is varied and dynamic. Some course areas include:
My experience as a Professional Writing major prepared me for the variety of writing that the legal field requires.
Michael Heavilon, ’15
Associate Attorney at DeFur Foran LLP
Career prospects for professional writers are robust and expected to grow.
Professional Writing graduates work in a variety of fields. The graph below shows the career placement by area of 428 Professional Writing alumni since the first graduating class of this relatively new major in 2013.
A sampling of current job titles include: assistant editor, associate attorney, copywriter, freelance writer, digital PR specialist, English language arts teacher, project manager, public services librarian, senior digital account manager, social media marketing manager, UX designer, VFX editor, etc.
PW alumni are employed at several hundred different companies and organizations, including Accenture, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Cleveland Orchestra, Deloitte, Fifth Third Bank, GE Aviation, HarperCollins, Indianapolis Public Library, Kraft Heinz, Meta, Medtronic, Microsoft, Oracle, Scholastic, TikTok, U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, and many media companies, law firms, schools, and libraries.
I worked with local organizations in two Professional Writing classes, helping them with their communication needs while also learning so much about working with a client. I’ve mentioned these projects many times during the interview process, and I firmly believe these real-world experiences were one of the reasons I have my job upon graduation.
Alex Arend, ’23
IT Recruiter, Beacon Hill Consulting
So much of client work is rooted in being able to sell your ideas (not just produce them) which is why I chose to double major in Professional Writing. I learned rhetorical strategies that strengthened my ability to pitch myself and my ideas
Allison Gnaegy, ’15
Vice President for Social Media, Spectrum Science
The Professional Writing major offers many opportunities for students to write for real-world, community organizations, gaining valuable knowledge, skills and experience while also helping local communities. Students learn about creating writing projects from ideation to drafting and user-experience testing to copy editing and publication; they engage in project management and team collaboration; and they communicate frequently with local community members. Here is a sampling of some of the projects.
Hueston Woods Nature CenterWorking closely with the naturalists from the Hueston Woods Nature Center and conducting research with people visiting the State Park, students created signs for the animal exhibits, a detailed hiking trail map, a brochure, and educational materials for the Center.
Historic Hopewell ChurchResidents in the Oxford area in the 1800’s were active in the Underground Railroad, helping enslaved people escape to freedom. One of the significant locations on the railroad is the Historic Hopewell Church, which is on the National Registrar of Historic Places. This church did not have a website or other publicity materials, so students researched, designed and wrote a website for the church. They also created a brochure that is distributed at area hotels and visitor bureaus. To read more about this important project, please see this news story.
Reily TownshipStudents in the Grant Writing course worked closely with citizens and elected officials from Reily Township to help the community by identifying funding needs and writing grants to apply for funding. Students went on a field trip to Reily where they hosted a pizza dinner for 50 people, talking during dinner with community members about their needs and hopes for their community. The students wrote grants seeking funding for AED devices, new fire equipment, new playground and exercise equipment, new sidewalks, AV equipment and more. This class project was supported with funding from Miami University Career Services and the English Department.
Enjoy OxfordStudents in the capstone course partnered with Oxford’s visitor bureau to create more social media campaigns, including video interviews and showcases of local business and non-profits. They also analyzed and redesigned Enjoy Oxford’s website, and they created a brochure for the community. At the end of the semester they showcased their work to Miami faculty and Oxford community members.
As professional writers and as Professional Writing students and faculty, we recognize the rhetorically complex, multi-mediated nature of writing. We think and act rhetorically, which means we recognize the constructed nature of knowledge, and we acknowledge, consider, and respond to multiple audiences, cultural contexts, power relations, and the situatedness of all writers. When we engage in new networks and communities, we have an array of rhetorical strategies to navigate, participate, and contribute ethically in social action.
As a Professional Writing major, you will gain experience and meet learning outcomes in the following areas.
Composing Processes: Design, develop, draft, revise, and edit writing purposefully and reflectively, recognizing that writing processes vary depending on context, genre, medium, technology, and adapting accordingly.
Rhetorical Theory: Assess the contexts for written communication (e.g., audience, purpose, social and cultural context). Synthesize, and apply rhetorical theories for researching, analyzing, and composing texts that are effective and ethical for their context.
Civic & Public Engagement: Collaborate with communities in designing and revising communications that meet their needs, participating in and shaping public discourse in ethical and inclusive ways.
Intercultural Communication: Analyze culturally-specific communicative and knowledge-making practices and compose with rhetorical awareness, recognizing the relationship among rhetorics, cultures, and power relations in local and global contexts.
Digital & Multimodal Design: Apply principles of visual rhetoric and design to analyze, evaluate, and create multimodal texts (e.g., data visualizations, conceptual maps, charts and graphs, infographics, social media content, websites, videos, brochures), applying coding, accessibility, and usability standards for digital and multimodal production.
Writing Networks: Recognize and analyze the social relationships among human and non-human actors in communication networks, and produce writing and content strategy for network circulation.
Project Management & Collaboration: Identify and apply collaborative and project management strategies for researching, evaluating, and addressing client’s communicative needs and user needs.
Usability/User-Experience: Analyze, evaluate, and apply approaches for researching users’ behaviors, expectations, and experiences to design usable, useful, and accessible communications.
Professionalization: Investigate career opportunities for professional writers, and develop the ability to articulate the unique knowledges and skills as a PW graduate you can bring to organizations.
Mary Jo Priest (’82) earned her B.A. with Miami University in Scientific and Technical Communication, now the Professional Writing degree. Upon graduation, she first worked for Industrial Data Technologies in Columbus, Ohio, where she wrote and designed technical information for internal and external company communications. After a few years, she chose to become a paralegal, a position where she continued to pursue her passion for writing until her death in 1995.
Mary Jo Priest’s family generously endowed an award, the Mary Jo Priest Award, in her honor, to recognize students who represent Mary Jo Priest’s core values in her time at Miami and in her professional life: excellent students who demonstrate a passion for exceptional writing.
More information on the Mary Jo Priest Award, including the multiple award categories and submission information, can be found on the Department of English Awards page.
2023
Proposal or Report — Madalyn Willis
Rhetorical Analysis — Caleb Chun
Rhetorical Analysis — Julia Jacobs
2022
Rhetorical Analysis — Liz Browning
Rhetorical Analysis — Nathan Gillin
Rhetorical Analysis — Olivia Hennessey
2021
Report or Proposal — Kendra Stiers
Rhetorical Analysis — Jada Favers
Rhetorical Analysis — Bailey Miller
2020
Rhetorical Analysis — Anthony Raffin
Rhetorical Analysis — Sophie Thompson
2019
Public Argument — Delaney Heisterkamp
Rhetorical Analysis — Annie Eyre
Rhetorical Analysis — Jacob Nitzberg
2018
Report or Proposal — Liz Winhover
Public Argument — Leah Gaus
Rhetorical Analysis — Tobias Paul
2017
Report or Proposal — Evan Doran
Public Argument — Emily Ritchie
Rhetorical Analysis — Paige Bremner
2016
Report or Proposal — Haley Jena
Public Argument — Alison Block
Rhetorical Analysis — Holly Wilkerson
2015
Report or Proposal — Courtney Katzmeyer
Public Argument — Allison Treen
Rhetorical Analysis — Alison Block
2014
Report or Proposal — Sam Sneeds
Public Argument — Alicia Auhagen
Rhetorical Analysis — Holly Jeric
2013
Report or Proposal — Elizabeth Nicole George
Public Argument — Alyssa Jane Jones
Rhetorical Analysis — Anne Meuser
Professional organizations and societies can provide you as a Professional Writing student with resources for networking, technical writing, editing, rhetoric, and more. Joining organizations or simply accessing the resources they offer is an important part of professionalization, enabling you to build knowledge and skills and to meet others who share your interests and passions.
Most of these organizations are national or international or are local chapters of national organizations such as the Northeast Ohio Society of Technical Communication. If you’re interested in a field of study and don’t see an organization listed here, talk with your professors and advisor, and they can help you locate an organization.
American Grant Writers’ Association
American Medical Writers Association
American Society for the History of Rhetoric
American Society of Business Publication Editors
American Society of Healthcare Publication Editors
Association for Teachers of Technical Writing
Central States Communication Association
Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication
International Association of Business Communicators
International Communication Association
International Digital Media and Arts Association
International Society for the History of Rhetoric
Internet Marketing Association
National Association of Independent Writers and Editors
National Association of Science Writers
National Communication Association
Northeast Ohio Society of Technical Communication
Public Relations Society of America
Publishing Professionals Network
SIGDOC: Special Interest Group for the Design of Communications
Society for Editors and Proofreaders
Society for Technical Communication
Professional Writing majors are strong candidates for internships because of the skills and knowledge they gain in classes in the major, starting with the first courses taken in the core.
PW majors have held writing and communication internships in a variety of fields such as editing, fashion, information technology, journalism, and government. A small sampling of companies with whom Professional Writing majors have interned include Amazon, FedEx, Great Lakes Publishing, IBM, McGraw-Hill, Nordstrom, Quicken Loans, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Time, Inc., and more.
If you have an internship or other employment-related to Professional Writing, you may apply to earn ENG 340 credits toward your degree.
Please see the next FAQ for perspectives from Professional Writing students about internships.
As a Miami student you have access to excellent career resources. In addition to the faculty and staff in your programs of study, you have the Center for Career Exploration and Success, which offers many online resources and programs, workshops, career fairs and other events.
In addition, a few years ago we asked PW students about their internships and here are some profiles of their experiences and tips they have.
Sai Allena ’19
Sara Azalone ’19
Olivia Bauer ’19
Abby Gooding ’19
Haley Jena, ’19
Jacob Nitzberg ’19PW alumni have launched their careers across the United States. In addition, alumni are also working abroad, including in Thailand, Australia, and Spain. With a PW major you may pursue a career anywhere you wish to live, working on-ground or remotely.
We are still in the process of transferring content to the newly redesigned Miami website, so for now, to read more about our alumni, please visit
https://sites.miamioh.edu/professional-writing/alumni-profiles/
