JOUR4279W

If you ask any strategic communications professional about the most essential core skill to their work, you would almost universally hear writing. This course is designed to give students more advanced preparation and appreciation for writing. We’ll cover public relations and advertising agency work, corporate/non-profit strategic communication and the development of tactical thinking and amplification techniques. The course will expand on the essential writing capabilities needed to complete a wide variety of projects in public relations and related strategic communication professions. It is designed to help students gain experience in researching, interviewing, writing, and producing materials used by strategic communication professionals. These include biographies, backgrounders, press releases, white papers, video scripts, longer-form writing (features, magazine essays), speeches, and other materials. Discussion of public relations tactics, the role of public relations and advertising agencies and various media channels is integrated into the course. This way, students will better understand the many aspects of the strategic communication profession. Theories of persuasion, social influence, and compliance gaining are interwoven into class discussions. It will expose students to more of the formats and ways they need to be able to write successfully, teach them theory and best practices for each, and give them as much practice with each as possible. Students who give this class their best effort should leave with the skills they’ll need to handle whatever writing assignments they may be tasked with on the first day of their first job. They also, hopefully, will have a stack of portfolio-ready, professional-quality writing samples to use to help land internships and jobs.
prereq: [JOUR 3004 or 3004H], JOUR 3201, JOUR 3279W, Strat Comm major

012509

Every Fall & Spring