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Category Archives: Outside the Classroom

The World Of Marketing

By jmoore | Published December 6, 2019

By Sydney Daileanes

What Is Marketing All About?

A lot of different thoughts come to mind when one considers the field of marketing. There are such a variety of jobs within the marketing profession. According to Oxford’s online dictionary, marketing is defined as the process of interesting potential customers and clients in an organization’s products and/or services. Because marketing involves researching, promoting, selling, and distributing products or services, the word process is essential to this definition.

Over the past decade, an abundance of jobs in marketing has arisen mostly because of advancements in technology. The overall employment of managers of advertising, promotions, and marketing is projected to grow eight percent from 2018 to 2028. This projected growth is greater than that of any other occupation. In order to continue expanding, organizations must continuously develop advertising, promotions, and marketing campaigns.

What is Required For This Field?

Requirements for jobs in the marketing field vary based on the level and type of career. Expectations for an entry-level job in the marketing profession are generalized. For example, I examined one entry-level job advertisement which states that it is merely helpful for applicants to have experience in public relations, gifting, advertising, celebrity speaking engagements, or business development. Background training in research methods, databases, and general office skills is preferred. Prior experience as a participant in informal seminars such as social media marketing or digital marketing techniques is advantageous but not required. For this entry-level internship position, the requirements are mostly general, however. Overall, it targets undergraduate students who are looking for academic credit and experience.

During my research, I also analyzed the requirements for advertising, promotions, and marketing managers. The requisites for these types of jobs are more rigorous and direct. A bachelor’s degree is required for most advertising, promotions, and marketing management positions. These managers typically have years of work experience in advertising, marketing, promotions, or sales.

GSK Headquarters in North Carolina

I had the privilege of interviewing my uncle, Mr. Bill Daileanes, about his career working as a respiratory biologic specialist at a pharmaceutical company called GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). In simple terms, he sells to doctors and hospitals a groundbreaking drug designed to treat asthma. Bill’s goal is to grow business in his territory. It took him many years to get to achieve the position he currently holds. He started with more basic work and eventually got a job he is most passionate about. He first earned a bachelor’s degree, which is required for most jobs in sales. Then, Bill needed to gain work experience and undergo years of training at GSK. Although there may be general requirements for jobs in the field of marketing initially, one is able to progress in the field by doing on-the-job training and gaining experience.

How Much Money Can Be Made?

Wages in different marketing fields depend on the field, company, location, and position held. The average salary for an entry level job in marketing is $42,144 per year in the United States. The median wage is the wage in the middle–half of all workers in an occupation earn more than that wage and half earn less. The median annual wage for advertising and promotions managers in May of 2018 was $117,130. The lowest ten percent of those employees earned less than $57,150, and the highest ten percent earned more than $208,000. The median annual wage for marketing managers was $134,290 in May 2018. The lowest ten percent of those employees earned less than $69,840, and the highest ten percent earned more than $208,000. It is certainly hard to become a manager in the field of marketing. When I interviewed Bill, he said when he started his career at Enterprise, he was not earning nearly as much money as he is now. Even though he is not a manager at his current job, he revealed the pay is generous and there are a lot of benefits and incentives. Becoming a manager is not necessary to be successful or to earn a good living in the field of marketing.

What Types of Writing Are Expected?

Many jobs in the marketing field require some form of informal or formal writing. Entry-level positions are designed to help employees to become more efficient and competent in different genres of writing in the field. Taking notes, planning campaigns, creating biographies for clients, and composing emails are the most common types of writing needed for entry-level marketing jobs. For example, the job advertisement that I analyzed was seeking an employee who could participate in the creative side of the business, which includes brainstorming sessions, researching celebrities and athletes for events and campaigns, and composing full biographies for client proposals.

As a respiratory biologic specialist, my uncle is not required to complete a lot of formal writing. While much of his day involves face-to-face encounters with physicians, doctors, and nurses, he also communicates with them through email. 70.4% of people in the Elon Poll say that they use email-writing weekly in their jobs. He said that his electronic communication is not merely an afterthought, however. According to the Elon Poll, 16% of graduate students responded that the biggest writing challenge they have encountered since graduating college is “Adapting to my readers’ expectations and needs.” It has taken Bill years to become skilled at constructing professional and succinct emails. When Bill worked at Enterprise, he was responsible for writing mailers. He was also responsible for writing to credit union members. If there was a sale to a certain credit union, he would have to document it in writing. Although Bill has not had to write many lengthy pieces of writing, the business emails and mailers he has had to write have to be meticulous, clear, and effective.

As an employee moves up the corporate ladder to a manager position, the ability to write well in many different genres is likely required. In addition to writing emails, taking notes, and planning, an upper-level employee must participate in more extensive written communication. For example, many marketing managers must plan promotional campaigns such as contests or giveaways, plan advertising campaigns (writing billboards), create websites and layouts for campaigns, develop pricing strategies, and analyze research studies. Approximately 63.6% of responders in the Elon Poll said writing effectively is important in their everyday life. The genre of writing suitable for each task is dependent on many different factors, but being able to write effectively is a necessity.

Difficulties With Writing

Most people have written academic essays, research papers, and electronic communication. The challenge is to adapt to the types of writing that each field, company, and position requires. For example, 19.6% of respondents from the Elon Poll said they struggled with writing they had never encountered before. To start off in an entry-level marketing job necessitates perfecting email skills and practicing written campaigns. One must have effective note-taking skills and the ability to compose biographies for clients. With job experience, an employee’s writing is likely to improve and expand.

When Uncle Bill must email physicians to promote his drug called NUCALA, he has to be cognizant that these physicians are some of the smartest people in the world. He must double check his punctuation and grammar. If his writing were unclear or weak, it could jeopardize his success in selling NUCALA to these doctors. With years of experience, Bill is confident that his electronic communication with doctors is proficient. Bill remembered that when he worked at Enterprise early on in his career, writing mailers was quite challenging. He said it was something he was not used to doing because he had little experience with this type of writing. While he learned to write academic papers in school, he learned to do situational writing while on the job.

Marketing Manager. Photo by John Rowley.

Being a manager in a marketing position can be extremely difficult, and even with years of experience, written communication is not easy. Possessing the ability to write in a way that will please everyone is virtually impossible. Writing for an international audience also can be incredibly challenging. Some marketing managers lack the knowledge necessary to interpret marketing report data. Based on an Elon Poll, only 44.5% of people after college say they do not use advertising and promotional materials at work.

The field of marketing is in high demand. Job growth and career opportunities are on the rise. There are many reasons people pursue careers in marketing, whether they are interested in creativity or business. It is important not to forget the relevance of being an experienced writer, no matter the profession.

Image Sources:

GSK Headquarters in North Carolina. GSK Headquarters Link

Marketing Manager. Photo by John Rowley. Marketing Manager Link

This post is part of a series on writing in the professions. Posts were written by students in Dr. Jessie L. Moore’s fall 2019 Writing: Argument & Inquiry class and include research from the June 2019 Center for Engaged Learning/Elon Poll survey of college graduates, age 18-34, High Impact Undergraduate Experiences and How They Matter Now.

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My Experience as the PWR Social Media Intern

By jmoore | Published March 11, 2019

by Carey Spence

How I Started

I first started working as the Professional Writing & Rhetoric major’s social media intern in September. In order to become acclimated to the role, my initial work included familiarizing myself with the website, CUPID blog, and the social media. Because Professional Writing and Rhetoric just recently became its own major separate from the English major, I needed to understand all that this switch entailed. After acclimating myself with the tone and overall brand the major embodies, I then needed to make a plan for the content I wanted to create and share. After meetings with Dr. Li and Dr. Pope-Ruark, as well as communicating with the previous intern, I had a plan in place to effectively communicate as the Professional Writing intern.

What I Did

My overarching plan for the Professional Writing and Rhetoric department’s social media was to focus on engagement. While there was already content on both the Twitter and Instagram accounts, engagement was not very high. However, after meeting with Dr. Pope-Ruark, we decided that the main focus should be on the Twitter account. With this in mind, my research for content was strategically informed. I wanted to share information that was useful to my audience, with the goal of getting more engagement on tweets — retweets, comments, and likes — and moreover, expanding the account’s reach.

One of the ways I focused on engagement with the Twitter account was by tweeting at different departments. The purpose of this was to establish relationships with these other departments so that they would retweet the content I was pushing. I emphasized the Professional Writing and Rhetoric program as a major that supplements other majors such as business majors and liberal arts majors.

In this regard, I also placed a lot of emphasis on the benefits of the program. Many Elon students have never even heard of Professional Writing and Rhetoric, and therefore don’t know much about the program. I tweeted articles about the importance of writing and communication skills and snippets from the website that promote this program as applicable to all career paths. Everyone needs to learn how to effectively communicate, so why not become an expert?

For the overarching theme of engagement, one of the ideas for content I had was to reach out to alumni in order to get testimonials for both Instagram and Twitter, as well as for the CUPID blog. While it’s nice for me to say that the Professional Writing and Rhetoric program is beneficial to any career, it means a lot more to hear it from people who are actually in the workforce, putting these skills to use. Including testimonials from alumni builds the program’s overall ethos.

My Advice

My main advice for future interns, both in this position specifically and for interns in general, is to come into any task with a specific plan. Coming up with content for the social media could have been a daunting task, but when I planned out how I wanted to approach the week, or even just that specific day, it was easier for me to think back on my goal (increasing engagement) and make decisions strategically.

Another piece of advice when it comes to social media specifically is to remember the social aspect. If I wanted other people and accounts to interact and engage with the content I was producing, I had to be willing to do that myself. Just liking photos on Instagram from other accounts went a long way in increasing engagement. I also found that retweeting other departments’ tweets made them more likely to retweet mine. In fact, just liking other accounts’ tweets led to an alumni sending me content that she thought my audience would want to see, making my job easier. Thinking strategically and building relationships are my two key pieces of advice when communicating.

Carey Spence is the 2018-2019 social media intern for Professional Writing & Rhetoric. Carey is double majoring in English Literature and Strategic Communications, with a minor in Professional Writing.

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How To Market Yourself: Alumni Advice

By rruark | Published July 15, 2016

Guest Blogger Rebecca Porter ’16

As a (graduated) senior (still in denial) I have found it helpful to look at those that were in my shoes before me and see what they have done to get to where they are now. Therefore, for my senior seminar capstone project I wanted to interact with PWR alumni to see where they are now, but more importantly understand how they got there. After weeks of communication with 15 different alumni I have collect tidbits of great advice about skill sets, marketability, and overall life in general about the professional world that I think is really important to share.

Let’s dive in.

Kevin Thompson ’12 shares, “Apply to everything-don’t limit yourself to writing or design. By the time you graduate you should be able to approach any situation and make it work.” Alexa Dysch ’15 agrees by stating, “Our degrees and skill sets enable us to work in any setting that we desire! I think at the core of ever job, you need to communicate with someone, whether a co-worker or a customer, and being able to study and understand that audience and then communicate effectively with them is a priceless tool.”

Their advice reassured me. But let’s keep going. What about when trying to market yourself to others?

Erin Nebel ‘03 said, “First, figure out what the company needs, then explain how your foundation of PWR can help the organization improve, grow and succeed.” Rachel Fishman ’15 builds off of this idea by stating, “emphasize your ability to communicate across diverse audiences and to be innovative with the mediums you use to capture your audiences!”

Alumni have emphasized that PWR majors have strong written and oral communication skills that are supported by knowledge and theories that have been proven effective. Sarah Paterson ’15 states, “PWR makes me an excellent writer and communicator in both verbal and visual contexts. PWR is flexible and can be applied anywhere, which means you are adaptable and ready to pick up new skills or learn about new industries.”

I also asked alumni about how they prepare for an interview. Molly Auger ‘11 tells me, “Rehearse your 30-second elevator speech and self-pitch and “consider your rhetorical appeals and your audience in your cover letters- don’t reiterate what can be discovered from your resume.”

Although squeezing all of your skill sets that you have learned over the past four years can be quite challenging, looking to our PWR alumni and learning how they have successfully done so is extremely helpful and reminds you to think rhetorically through each of your decisions. Why am I doing what I am doing and is this the most effective way?

There is a month left of school so sometimes the most important reminder you can give yourself: just breathe, it will all work out.

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How To Market Yourself: Portfolios

By rruark | Published July 1, 2016

Guest Blogger Rebecca Porter ’16

Let’s review. Marketing yourself to a future employer is an important step when moving from academics and further into the professional world. As discussed in (link here) there are ways to create a resume that successfully shows off your skills ets and sets you a part from the pack. Yet, in a multimedia world there are different ways to market yourself than just a resume. In fact, after surveying PWR alumni, many stated that portfolios or personal blogs are just as valuable. How do you make an effective blog or website you ask?

Mia Brady ’13 states in order to “make it most effective you’d want to have a lot of clickable links to connect to websites or materials applicable to the student’s work.” Make sure that if you are making an interactive way to market your skills, the platform that you are doing is also interactive. The more information that you give an employer, the more likely you will stick out against other applicants. Check out alumni Caitlin Rantala‘s superwoman-themed portfolio. Cool, right? She further proves the point that you can have a fun portfolio, but you can also show off your skills at the same time. Pick a theme that means something to you. If you’re not attached to it, why should anyone else be?

Also, choose colors and fonts that are further going to showcase who you are and the story you are trying to tell. Keep in mind who your audience is and your ultimate goal for making a website. Understand how to tailor what your interests are to the interests of your audience and work to seam those two ideas together in an innovative way. Look at this, this, this and this, for more inspiration to get you started on your portfolio.

Need more reasons why portfolios are vital? Read this. Some of the jobs you may apply require writing samples and because of this, Hillary Dooley ’14 says, “It’s easier (and helps establish ethos) to provide a link to your portfolio with not only your writing samples, but why these examples are effective forms of communication. Even if potential employers don’t review your portfolio, it lets them know that you have enough experience and have taken the time to create a portfolio.” Provide a diverse group of writing samples in your portfolio, but have a layout that is clearly organized and understandable for employers to navigate.

In a multimedia world, having different platforms to show off why your qualified is helpful when entering the professional world and creating a portfolio is a great place to start. By creating other materials besides a resume you are applying your skills in innovative ways that are appealing to employers.

And our alumni have other helpful advice they’ve shared with me. Read the next post to find out.

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An Intro to PWR Student Explores SURF

By rruark | Published June 15, 2016

Guest Blogger Meara Waxman ’19

Color scheme, organization of text, and images: all of these aspects are important to consider when creating a rhetorically effective poster and presentation. As I milled around the different posters lining the Great Hall and Elon’s SURF Day (Student Undergraduate Research Forum), I started to notice that the most complicated posters did not always turn out to be the most rhetorically effective.

First, I saw that the scientific presenters often filled their entire poster with words and complicated graphs. As shown in the image to the right, it was difficult to pull out the most important information. Even as my eyes were naturally drawn to the images in the top right-hand corner, I could not immediately tell what the image was supposed to depict. The issue was not that the information was too technical, just that there was too much information on the page. Since the presenter was also speaking about the topic, I felt that this poster, while informative, could have been more effective if it had used the text to highlight the main points instead of summarizing all of the research.

I saw another poster that also had a lot of information condensed onto a small space, but this one worked a little better because of the systematic color scheme. In the image on the left, the author chose green to highlight the section titles, and she outlined the bottom in a transparent green to continue the theme. Since her presentation was on photosynthesis, the color choice was not only relevant, but it also served to emphasize the topic of the poster. This visual presentation did a really good job of incorporating the contrast and repetition elements of the C.R.A.P principles of graphic design because of the green color and the consistent section headers. However, this poster did have a scatterplot right in the middle of the page, which cluttered up the central focus point of the poster and distracted from the highlighted bullet points.

The final poster that I will bring into my discussion is a poster that addressed all of the C.R.A.P principles (contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity). Compared to the other posters I discussed above, this poster (left) seemed rather simple. However, this simplicity actually enticed more audience members because it was not too overwhelming. The text and images aligned nicely and complimented each other well. Additionally, the format of the text was repeated throughout the poster, which kept the visuals consistent.

The most rhetorically interesting part of the poster, however, required the viewer to pay careful attention. At first, I thought that this poster did not do a good job with repetition because the colors of the text were different for every section, and I did not understand the reasoning behind that decision. However, upon closer inspection, I realized that the colors of the text came from the different colors of the map about Senegalese migration. This rhetorical decision subtly highlighted the map and drew attention to the most important features of the image.

Overall, I was extremely impressed with the SURF presentations that I saw, and I am excited to hopefully become a presenter in the next few years. Seeing the posters today and noticing which elements made the posters rhetorically effective helped me understand the importance of making a poster visually appealing as well as academically engaging. Perhaps not everyone who looked at the posters realized that the rhetorical decisions of the presentation made the difference between what they considered “good” and “bad” posters, but those choices were still important underlying elements. In other words, the rhetorical language gave the posters the extra push they needed to be engaging, effective, and appealing.

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Words From The Wise: Parting Thoughts From Soon-to-be Graduates

By mbryant | Published May 13, 2015

With Commencement just a few weeks away, the Cupid Blog wanted to take a minute and talk to a few of the soon-to-be graduating seniors about what they have learned and hear any PWR words of wisdom they might have to share.

Dustin Swope

“PWR has taught me the power of rhetoric as a tool for enacting change in the world, as well as the need to lead future authors by example towards an ethical relationship with rhetoric.”

“My advice is to start every project by learning as much as you can about the topic, the people that you’re writing to, and possibly the people that you’re writing for. Then, use this information to spread knowledge and make a positive difference in the world.”

Rachel Lewis

“PWR taught me how to communicate. It taught me that writing has value within the sphere of social justice, and it taught me that social media can be huge when it comes to uplifting the voices of marginalized voices. More than anything, PWR has taught me that communication is great, but communication backed by theory and ethics has the ability to make a huge influence on the ways that we interact in the world. Because of PWR, I have had the opportunity to manage a number of social media accounts, I know how to send a professional email that will get a response, and I know how to design a brochure that allows my readers to skim without losing any important information.”

Miranda Allan

“Keep track of how your PWR definition and identity evolve throughout your coursework. It’s something we’re always wrapped up in, but we don’t always examine it critically. As a senior, I wish that I had more materials chronicling my growth throughout the program!”

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Saving Time with Social Media

By jmoore | Published May 6, 2015

Rachel Weeks, ‘16

Social media is a powerful tool for interacting with others, building your personal brand, and expanding your professional network. But between classes, homework, and on-campus activities, it can be hard to even think about putting in the time for using social media professionally. Despite that, on average, American adults spend more than three hours a day on social media. We’re online; we’re just not using that time effectively. Simply put, we don’t have that kind of time to waste. Here are a few tips for saving time with social media.

Scheduling is Key

One of the biggest time-wasters on social media is switching back and forth between the various social media sites that are available to us. Moving from Facebook, to Twitter, to Instagram, to LinkedIn and back to the beginning isn’t an efficient use of our time. Thankfully, a lot of people have figured that out. By using a management system like Hootsuite or Buffer, both of which put all of your social media sites in one place and let you schedule posts in advance, you can increase your content output without wasting time by jumping from one site to the next. By having all of your sites in one place, you’ll have a much better picture of what your online presence looks like as well.

Budget Time and Use it Wisely

Another way to cut down on the time you spend on social media is to budget time specifically for that purpose. A common way of wasting time that’s harder to notice is the time you spend jumping around looking at content after content. With all of the hashtags, links, and articles that lead from one to another, it’s easy to spend a lot of time looking at things without finding anything you actually want to share. By limiting yourself to a specific amount of time on social media, you’ll not only save time, but also find better content than you would by hopping from article to article. Set a specific amount of time for Facebook, Twitter, and all your other sites. This time can be as little as thirty minutes total, or as much as an hour. Whatever amount of time you choose, set limits and stick to them.

Be Consistent

Perhaps one of the most overlooked and most helpful timesaving strategies for using social media is using it with consistency. The best way to build your online presence, personal brand, and networking skills is by using social media on a regular basis. As mentioned above, this doesn’t mean spending all day every day online, it just means dedicating a regular amount of time every week to interacting on social media. Consistency with social media also means finding what you like to post and share, and continuing with that to reinforce your online presence, professional network, and personal brand. When you find your niche of what you like to post that you feel reflects who you are, consistency becomes much easier.

Takeaways

Social media is an important tool for establishing your online presence personally and professionally. The most important thing is to make sure that you are using social media instead of the other way around. Social media should be a tool for making your professional life easier, not harder. These tips should help make sure you’re in control of the time you use, what you post, and how that reflects who you are.

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Research Highlight: Carolyn Braganca

By cbraganca | Published April 30, 2015

One of the most important rhetorical decisions every scholar makes when conducting research is the methodology. Within the literature field, every scholar must choose which critical lens he/she believes will reveal the most about a text. Every text can be analyzed with a multitude of critical lens; to strengthen and streamline your argument, you should typically choose one, two at most. However, in some instances, the critical lens you use contributes to the credibility of your argument—for example, analyzing Homer’s Iliad using postmodern criticism is typically not advisable. The importance of this decision became clear to me during my undergraduate research process.

Since Guy Ritche’s adaptation with Robert Downey Jr. in 2009, Sherlock Holmes has seen a recent surge in fame and popularity. He was similarly popular when Arthur Conan Doyle published the first two collections of short stories between 1890 and 1892. Back then—and, arguably, today—Holmes was considered a model of masculinity to Conan Doyle’s audience of middle-class men, largely because of his intense observational and analytical capabilities. This idealization of him initially made sense when I first read the first 24 short stories. However, upon reading a biographical piece about Conan Doyle that argued the author himself was considered a champion of the dominant masculine ideal, I began to question how masculine Holmes really was—after all, Holmes is vastly different from Conan Doyle in many capacities.

My research question then became: Can the man Watson termed “the world’s most perfect reasoning and observing machine” be considered an ideal masculine figure by Victorian standards?

Once I established this question, I then had many decisions to make, the first being: What method would lead to the most relevant answer? The answer initially seemed obvious—my paper was obviously going to be a gender criticism of Sherlock Holmes. However, I quickly realized this critical lens would the weaker method of defining the Victorian masculine ideal. For the stronger definition, I would need to analyze primary sources. A not-as-popular lens called new historicism became the best method; it seeks to analyze literature within its historical an/or cultural context by analyzing the work in conjunction with a relevant primary source from the time. Thus, my next decision became to choose the primary co-text.

Fortunately, I had an abundance of sources from which to choose. The fin de siècle period (“end of the century,” typically considered the 1880s to 1890s) in England was a time of gender instability, which was a big reason I was fascinated with the time period. For much of the century, gender roles were influenced by the ideal of separate spheres—women were defined by their role as wife/mother in the private sphere of the home while men shifted between their role as husband/father in the private sphere and as whatever their occupation was in the public sphere of society. By the end of the century, however, the first wave of feminism saw women publically move into the public sphere, the sphere that used to distinguish masculinity from femininity. As a result, men had to redefine the line that separated masculinity from femininity, and many advice columns and advice books aimed to help men do so. All I had to do was choose which one.

Although I checked out numerous dusty, old primary sources from various libraries around the country, my choice ultimately came from a quick skim of a secondary source: Robert Baden-Powell’s Scouting for Boys: A Handbook for Instruction in Good Citizenship. The book was immensely popular, and while it was published more than a decade after Conan Doyle’s first two collections (Baden-Powell published it in 1908), many of the qualities Baden-Powell championed in the book were militarized adaptations of qualities emphasized in many of the other primary sources I had read. Scouting for Boys became the main source I used to define ideal masculinity during the fin de siècle, but to compensate for the time gap I buttressed my definition with my analyses of other primary sources from within nineteenth century England.

Because I chose Scouting for Boys and new historicism, my argument is more of my own. If I has chosen gender criticism, my argument would be relying on other scholars’ definition of Victorians’ ideal masculinity, which would have made my argument even more susceptible to criticism.

It is important to be critical, and the critical lens you use is an central rhetorical decision: choose wisely, fellow readers!

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Research Highlight: Hannah Silvers

By cbraganca | Published April 29, 2015

Hannah Silvers—PWR ’17

In the beginning stages of the brainstorming process for my undergraduate research project, all I knew was that I wanted to investigate something about how writing operates in organizations. I had no idea where to go from there. I played with a few ideas, but when I realized that none of them were sticking, I turned to my own experiences as a student editor for inspiration. What I identified were two conflicting identities, and it is this idea of a conflicting identity that I think I want to investigate further:

On one hand, I am first and foremost a student. Everything I do at this stage in my life is a test run for the “real world.” The audience of class assignments and projects is always my professor — even assignments that ask me to imagine different hypothetical audiences are evaluated by a professor, so which is the audience that really matters in the end? I’m expected to fail and then use my failure as a learning opportunity.

On the other hand, as an editor, I’m expected to know what I’m doing. I’m employed by a student media organization that relies on my proficiency with AP style and English grammar as well as my fact-checking skills. Technical knowledge aside, I’m also supposed to understand organizational norms, such as how the production process works and the role I play in the organization. How I understand these processes affects how I edit.

Student editors, particularly those employed by student-run or other on-campus organizations, are always navigating their dual identities as students and as editors, as learners and as experts. The context in which they work is one that frames them primarily as students, but their responsibilities require them to act as experts.

I want to explore this duality in an undergrad research project. We’re in the beginning stages of the research process, brainstorming a potential skeleton for what the research would look like. Right now, I think want to conduct an ethnographic study in which I follow a few student editors, observing and interviewing. The goal of my research would be to discover how student editors function in these two roles and maybe how they or their organizations could help them be more successful in both roles.

I think research in this field would be immediately useful for college students who find themselves in positions of authority over a text. But since we’re always learning, the findings could translate beyond college students to employees who have to learn how to write for a new company or situation.

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What’s the Font About?

By mbryant | Published April 29, 2015

Mags Bryant ’16, Professional Writing and Rhetoric & Creative Writing

Typically, I’m a stickler for Times New Roman, font size 12, single spacing (or double, if necessary). Yes, I’m THAT person. Personally, I feel that in the realm of creative writing, there is no other way to hand off your work. Times New Roman looks professional, clean, and familiar. There’s no room for wondering if a G is a Q or if an I is actually an L. It is the standard. And yet, much like how Comic Sans has its place in the elementary school teacher’s letter to the parents, it seems that experts are finding the same to be true about my favorite font.

I use TNR for a lot of things, but my resume is not one of them. And much like your job experience, the font of your resume matters; it says a lot about you. Earlier this week, Natalie Kitroeff of Bloomberg wrote an article about The Best and Worst Fonts to Use On Your Résumé . There seems to be some controversy surrounding what is the right font for a good resume. Yesterday, NPR provided their thoughts on the Bloomberg article. After reading both, I’ve found that maybe the place for Times New Roman is in essays, articles, and cover letters.

What do you think of their font judgments? Do you agree or disagree? Did you learn something different? Do you use just one font or does your resume get two? Let us know!

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