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.
To prepare students to be professional writers, students in the Professional Writing major will gain experience and meet learning outcomes in the following areas.
Composing Processes
Students will 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
Students will 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
Students will 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
Students will 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
Students will 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
Students will 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
Students will identify and apply collaborative and project management strategies for researching, evaluating, and addressing client’s communicative needs and user needs.
Usability/User-Experience
Students will analyze, evaluate, and apply approaches for researching users’ behaviors, expectations, and experiences to design usable, useful, and accessible communications.
Professionalization
Students will investigate career opportunities for professional writers, and develop the ability to articulate the unique knowledges and skills they can bring to organizations.