Introduction to Workplace Writing Workshop
Meeting Expectations, Understanding Conventions and Building a Better Writing Process
Length and Cost
Virtual Workshops
Duration and Scheduling: Two 1.5-hour sessions
Instructor and Materials Fee: $750
Registration Fee Per Participant: $325
On-Site Workshops
Duration: One 3-hour session
Instructor and Materials Fee: $750
Registration Fee Per Participant: $325
Virtual Workshops During COVID-19
Currently, we are only offering virtual workshops due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To check on the status of on-site workshop options, or for any other questions, please email program director Jessica McCaughey at jessmcc
gwu [dot] edu.
Description
This foundational course introduces students to the field of professional communication, with an emphasis on “learning how to learn” new forms of writing. Participants will learn to focus first on audience and purpose, and discussions will emphasize persuasive writing strategies and rhetorical appeals. Students will be introduced to a variety of workplace writing genres and be asked to consider various professional writing contexts within corporate, nonprofit and government settings, as they learn to situate their own current and future work within common workplace parameters. The class will contemplate what makes “good” workplace writing, from concision to structure to visual readability.
The workshop will also ask participants to evaluate their writing process and offer them techniques and tools to develop more effective practices in planning, including pre-writing and outlining; gathering feedback; revising; editing; and proofreading. Finally, the workshop offers strategies for adapting an “ideal” writing process to a realistic one in inevitable times of extremely limited turnaround.
Outcomes
In this workshop, participants will learn to:
- Identify common rhetorical situations for professional communication
- Rhetorically evaluate a variety of professional writing texts
- Identify and practice developing common workplace writing genres
- Conform to typical workplace writing standards and expectations
- Identify the key elements of an effective writing process
- Articulate the distinctions between higher and lower level concerns and prioritize when necessary
- Generate strategies for success in each stage of their writing process, regardless of project turn-around time
- Evaluate their writing process and work to modify it to better serve their writing needs and strengths and their organizational situation
- Demonstrate how this modified process might be enacted in various writing projects
To schedule a workshop or for more information, please contact GWwritinggwu [dot] edu (GWwriting[at]gwu[dot]edu) or complete the GW Workplace Writing Inquiry Form.