ENGL 4530 Adv. Writing for Business and Industry

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Project 1: Self-Assess and Create a Development Plan

Self-Assessment Activity

Working through the course will help you consider where to focus your energy as you develop your professional communication skills. No one can learn everything about writing in six weeks, so one of my purposes in this course is to help you become aware of your own needs and goals as a communicator. This activity involves assessing your current communication strengths and planning for your continued growth as a professional.

Part A

  1. Please choose ONE document of no more than four pages that you have previously written for either work or school.
  2. Write a memo to me that describes the purpose and audience for the document and what you see as its strengths and weaknesses. In your memo, please also list what, in general, you think are your most effective communication and writing skills and those that you’d like to work on developing further. (The memo should be about 750 words, or about 1 3/4 pages single-spaced, 2 1/2 double spaced. Use a standard memo format that includes “to,” “from,” “date,” and “subject” lines; 11-12 point readable font such as Arial, Times, Helvetica, etc.)
  3. Update your resume. If you already have a resume, update it. If you don't have a resume, now would be a great time to start one. (See pages 478 to 494 in BWH and pages 277-305 in Harty.
  4. When you’ve completed the memo and resume, please submit the memo, sample document, and a copy of your resume to me via digital drop box.

I'll give you feedback on your resume, writing sample, and memo.

Part B

After reading my feedback on part A of this project and on subsequent assignments and working through the course, make a brief plan for updating and polishing some of your communication skills. In your plan,

  1. list aspects of communication that are important to you and your career
  2. list areas of communication that you need to improve on in your work;
  3. indicate what steps you have taken/will take to work on the specific aspects that you list (we'll talk about some of these in discussion);
  4. identify any writing problems that you worked on while participating in this course and note any progress you think you've made.
  5. Submit your plan to me in the form of a follow up memo.