If you ask someone what an editor does, you’ll hear words like grammar, flow, style, accuracy, spelling, and tone, among others. Editors strive for perfection from behind the scenes, and if you are great at what you do, you are invisible.

No one will look at an edited article and think, I am certain that, once upon a time, there was a double quote where there should have been a single, and a wise person fixed the issue for my benefit. But if you let a “their” slip through in the place of a “there,” you are a complete moron.
— “What It’s Really Like to be a Copy Editor“

But editors are more than real-life spellcheckers and grammar police — real editors ship:

These are people who are good at process. They think about calendars, schedules, checklists, and get freaked out when schedules slip. Their jobs are to aggregate information, parse it, restructure it, and make sure it meets standards. They are basically QA for language and meaning.

This is only a small snippet from an article by Paul Ford that I consider a must-read for both editors and non-editors — the former because it offers language for explaining the many facets of the role, and the latter because it speaks to how important an editor is to the content process.

But sometimes words aren’t enough. How can something like editing be conveyed in a way that syncs with conventional performance (aka value) measurement tools? Enter a survey by Writing for Digital that sought to answer that very question. The result: when it comes to web copy, “well edited pages do 30 percent better than unedited pages.” That is a huge margin that quantifies an editor’s skills in a way that companies can understand.

Yet even when I explain how editing is a part of the larger process, or that well-edited content ties in to the overall perception of a company’s brand, there are times I feel it is still seen as a skill that anyone can do with limited time, resources, and reward. I don’t think this is a unique battle; I think it’s the same one that designers are fighting when it comes to spec work or clients who expect quality but cheap design. So why does the devaluation continue?

Earlier this year, The Washington Post addressed an increase in errors in its copy, citing reduced staff and the changing duties of editors in regards to the online space. This is just one example of content suffering, and Alexis Madrigal, senior editor and lead technology writer for The Atlantic, suggests that letting the quality of content hit rock bottom is the only way editing can make a comeback:

We take good roads for granted in the US; our highway system just works, so you start to think of it almost as geology, almost immutable and close to eternal. But if you take a drive on the backroads of the Yucatan, the forest encroaches, large potholes appear out of nowhere, and the signage is indecipherable, regardless of your level of Spanish.

The Internet can feel like a jungle, and journalists are in the business of providing paths through the territory. Writers might blaze the trails, but editors maintain the roads. The vines are creeping and the potholes are growing. And maybe letting the road deteriorate is really the only way to make audiences and media companies realize the value of those whose names do not appear underneath the headline.

Maybe Madrigal is right. Maybe it will take more bad “roads” before people start to value editors again. But to not fight the perception that editors are expendable would be a mistake requiring more than red ink to correct.

Along with grammar and punctuation, The Yahoo! Style Guide: The Ultimate Sourcebook for Writing, Editing, And Creating Content For The Digital World covers a range of web-specific topics such as:

• Effective writing and editing for an online audience
• Techniques for streamlining copy
• Basic Web codes
• Internet law
• Search engine optimization

If you’re writing or editing for an online audience, this “Strunk and White for the online world” is a valuable resource to add to your arsenal. The guide is now available in both print and digital versions, plus book extracts, additional resources, and an “Ask an Editor” feature can be found online.

I’ve used and abused em dashes since high school. Every theme paper I wrote was peppered with dashes, and I began to view the illustrious em dash as pepper-punctuation to spice up my otherwise formulaic essay. I had a teacher ask why I chose to use em dashes instead of the more frequently abused comma, but my only reason was that I liked them—they seemed to fit in with my sentences well. Punctuation personality quizzes tell me I’m an em dash. I have, in my course as a writer, editor, tweeter, and Facebook-er, decided that the em dash is the punctuation world’s equivalent of the little black dress.

To clarify before I continue, there are three dashes in all English usage: the en dash (–), the em dash (—), and the 3-em dash (———). Try to think of them as hemlines.

The en dash appears frequently, but has a specific purpose, like, say, a miniskirt. It’s shorter than our little black dash—the length of the letter n. The job of an en dash is to show a range, be it of numbers, amounts, dates, scores—safely anything else that may otherwise require the word to between values. It is a preemptable piece of punctuation, so if a range is proceeded by a preposition like between or from, use the words to, from, or through in place of the dash. It is also a stand-in for the hyphen to avoid ambiguity when connecting hyphenated terms and open compounds. In other words, let the user beware of the en dash; it is difficult to pull off.

The 3-em dash is long and unusual like an evening gown, and you use it only on very formal occasions; that is, in certain types of bibliographic systems when you reference the same author but a different work. Sometimes, too, you use a 3-em dash in place of omitted words, like the black bars over bodies when the person has omitted clothing.

An em dash is a beautiful, functional piece of punctuation, perfectly balanced for all of your writing needs—like the LBD. It can arrest attention in the middle of a word party, exemplify good taste in relating a list, and is appropriate for even the most solemn of written occasions, even showing one overcome—with—emotion—. Its length is just right. The eye slides across the dash and focuses immediately on the words after it. You can see the space it creates, its slim line coming at you from a paragraph away.

The em dash is the most versatile—and not surprisingly, the most common—of all the dashes. Its foremost use is to set off digressions or descriptions within text a little more than normal. With these functions, a pair of em dashes make an interesting alternative to commas, colons, semicolons, and parentheses when used correctly. But be careful—too many will make your text feel breathless, much like how you’d feel wearing a little black dress in a wrestling match.

It’s true that some textual stylists conclude that the em dash is overused and should be avoided unless there are no other options for punctuation. However, it is more likely that they are tired of seeing such a staple misused and mistaken. Either way, the little black dash is one of those things you should always have hanging on your keyboard, a little piece that can do you and your writing so much good.

Tell us about your educational/professional background.
I graduated from Michigan State University in ’07 with a dual B.A. in Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy (PTCD, that’s one) and Professional Writing (PW). I really enjoyed studying the leading writers in Western political thought, but I’m employed because of the writing skills, design processes, and use of the serial comma that I learned in Professional Writing. I spent a year at a small PR firm (with varying degrees of success) before taking my current job.

Tell us about your current job.
I’m a communications specialist with the Michigan Credit Union League (MCUL), the state trade association for credit unions. I’m in a department of four people that takes care of media relations, publications, multimedia, web writing (and a little bit of design), social media outreach, and member communications. I handle about half of the media relations load including writing press releases and op-eds, contacting reporters and pitching stories, and general strategizing for media outreach. We get to dabble in the political advocacy side of media communications as well, which I enjoy tremendously.

I also write for four different MCUL publications and am the editor/designer for one of them. We oversee the website content, so I get to do regular updates to the public affairs pages and work with other departments to improve the information architecture, usability, and writing in their areas as well. Our department does video work, generally for web use, so I get to write, shoot, and edit the occasional short video. My boss (the director of public affairs) is a former TV news guy, so I’ve learned a lot about basic video production from working with him. I also tweet occasionally on the company account.

What does a typical day look like for you?
It varies greatly, which is a real asset. In the middle of a major media campaign, I may do almost exclusively media work, including writing, calling reporters, and tracking stories, for the better part of a week. When the publication deadlines come up, I’m usually buried in Quark for a few days. Web updates happen daily, but the larger ongoing online construction projects are usually put aside when more pressing things come up.

Usually it’s some mix of the above tasks. If I’m on top of things, there isn’t usually much time pressure for any particular item. At the same time, it’s rare that I run out of things to do. I appreciate the variety and the time I have to play and create.

What kinds of documents do you produce?
Press releases, op-eds, a quarterly publication (for a fairly conservative member audience), as well as internal, informal plans. We tend not to have formal intra-office memos. Our communications staff constantly shifts between pieces written for members (with technical language, financial industry jargon, and pro-credit union slant) and the media (low industry knowledge, consumer focus, jargon free). Then we have to convince our bosses not to add in overly complex language and concepts to the media communications before they go out.

What communication skills are needed for your job?
Written, oral/aural, and visual design skills are all important, in generally equal parts. When dealing with reporters, you lose credibility quickly with misspellings, punctuation errors, and grammatical missteps — both in press releases and emails. You also have to be able to speak their language when calling and listen to gauge their interest in a story.

That said, those skills don’t matter if I can’t produce decent-looking, visual-rhetorically-sound press releases, publications, and web pages. I’m not a designer or a telemarketer, but I have to sound professional and create documents that look professional. The skills are different than those needed for writing, but the necessity of audience understanding is the same.

How did you prepare for your job?
Working for a PR firm gave me a firm grasp of AP style, working with reporters, and producing news-centered writing. For a PW grad, it’s the process of adding a very specialized audience to your repertoire. Never having worked for a news outlet of any sort, this was a big step for me. It’s not rocket science, but there is a lot of thought that goes into every lede and every pitch. It’s also done very badly by thousands of organizations every day, which makes it important to separate yourself from the inbox trash that reporters receive every day. Luckily, I’ve been able to conjure up design and publications writing skills from PW classes.

List three of your favorite professional resources/references/tools and tell us why they’re your favorite.
I use a number of different reference books to fulfill my style, grammar, and usage needs. I like having actual books because, after so much time staring at the screen, it feels good to turn pages.

AP Stylebook is the Bible. We generally try to stick to AP style for our publications (for our own sanity), but there are times when I turn to other books for specific publication-related questions. Chicago Manual of Style is comprehensive and often is able to offer two or three solutions for a given situation. I use A Writer’s Guidebook for answers to my grammar questions because its explanations make sense to me, for whatever reason.

These three are within reach at all times. Strunk & White is also on my shelf, mostly as a conversation piece.

How do you stay up to date in your field?
I have been somewhat involved with the local chapter of the Public Relations Society of America, and have been lobbying the boss for more funding to increase my participation.

I do read a number of PR-related blogs including The Bad Pitch Blog, which offers sobering tales of really poorly done PR, and the NY Times After Deadline grammar blog, which gives insight into both the pitfalls between a writer and clean, clear sentences, and the internal workings of a major newsroom. I also follow many PR and communications types on Twitter and benefit from the wisdom they share.

How would you define professional writing?
Professional writing is conscious communication. It’s writing a document and being able to make a supporting argument for every decision made in the process; it’s web design that satisfies the needs of three different audience groups; it’s a publication that gets its point across on different levels for different readers, both in terms of design and content.

Do you have any tips to share with other professional writers/editors/designers?
In my organization, one of my most important jobs is to be an evangelist for good writing. You do this by consistently writing well, but also by helping others to improve their writing and understand the goals of audience-focused communication. It is possible, though not always easy, to do this and still have friends at work.

The more we can share the importance and perspective necessary for better writing, the better our workplaces can communicate with each other and the less work we’ll have to do correcting everyone else’s stuff. The world is growing increasingly more complex, so people who can explain it and help others explain it grow more important every day.

Tell us about your educational/professional background.
I graduated from Calvin College with double majors in English and mass media. I worked as a copy editor and later a section editor for the student newspaper there, and held an editorial internship where I wrote for two city magazines before I graduated. I actually got my first taste of marketing through an administrative assistant position – the company put my creativity and writing skills to work by putting me on projects for an internal newsletter, some promotional materials, event planning and Web site writing. I loved that, but the administrative part of my job was unfulfilling and I honestly wasn’t that good at it…so I moved on to full-time freelancing. Now I am Motion Marketing & Media’s (M3) resident ink slinger and managing editor of Capital Area Women’s LifeStyle Magazine (CAWLM).

Tell us about your current job.
As M3′s resident ink slinger, I do a lot of copywriting for a broad variety of materials, from proposals to newsletters to websites to press releases and more. I also pitch a lot of stories and interviews about our clients to newspapers, television, and radio. I’m the primary proofreader for all materials that come out of the M3 office and I also manage social media for various campaigns. I work with the rest of the team on branding, communications plans, and events.

As managing editor of CAWLM, I coordinate the many pieces that must come together to bring the magazine to fruition each month. This includes conceptualizing story ideas, managing freelance writers and photographers, writing articles, editing articles, and working with the rest of our in-house team to keep tabs on ad revenues and layout design. I also oversee our reader outreach, including radio ads, the website, and the Facebook Fan page.

I wear a lot of different hats. It helps me stay creative and on top of my game. I love it.

What does a typical day look like for you?
The first thing I do in the morning is get my coffee and catch up on my e-mail. After that, my priorities are primarily deadline-driven. Every Monday we have a team meeting to keep us all up to date on each and every M3 account, and every Thursday we have a brainstorming meeting. Most of my time is spent writing and editing.

The closer we get to CAWLM‘s deadline, the more time I devote to proofing and layout review — the few days prior to deadline I generally take the entire magazine home with me to review before I get in again the next morning. After deadline, we hit a lull where magazine work is lighter and I catch up on client work.

What kinds of documents do you produce?
I write magazine articles for CAWLM, of course. For M3, I write press releases, talking points, website copy, blog entries, newsletters, proposals, brochures, media kits…a little bit of everything really. Check out my latest blog entry on National Punctuation Day.

What communication skills are needed for your job?
Strong, flexible writing skills are critical, as well as a solid knowledge of the AP Stylebook. But verbal and interpersonal communication skills are extremely important, too. I have to be able to convey a relevant, attention-grabbing story pitch in 30 seconds or less to a reporter over the phone, for example. It’s also important to foster relationships with clients and the rest of the M3 team I work with each day. Since we don’t pay our writers, being able to motivate and foster relationships with CAWLM freelancers is crucial for getting quality articles from them consistently and on deadline.

How did you prepare for your job?
The things that I have found to help me the most at every stage of my career so far have been maximizing the flexibility of my writing skills and not being afraid to ask questions to help me learn new things. I never turn an opportunity down. I believe I’ve been successful because of the diversity of the kinds of writing I’ve taken on.

List three of your favorite professional resources/references/tools and tell us why they’re your favorite.
AP Stylebook: This is the Bible for anyone working at a publication or pitching to them.

Copyblogger: This blog is updated constantly by a handful of blog and copywriting experts. They have great tips for staying on top of your game.

Thesaurus: For those days when your brain just doesn’t crank out the right words. And for learning new ways to say what you want. We have Merriam Webster’s in the office, but I also use online thesauri and other sources.

How do you stay up to date in your field?
I stay current by staying connected through expert blogs, Twitter, professional publications, and keeping the conversation going with other creative minds. I also keep tabs on the news, since I need to be on top of hot topics and trends, and read as much as I can — books, blogs, magazines — and try to expose myself to writing I admire to improve my own style and vocabulary.

How would you define professional writing?
There are so many facets to professional writing, but I would define it broadly as writing with the intent of promoting a business. But this definition leaves out so much of what a job in professional writing entails — the diversity and creativity involved.

Do you have any tips to share with other professional writers/editors/designers?
Read everything. Know your grammar and style guides. Be adventurous — new experiences strengthen your writing and creativity by broadening your horizons.

Our featured professionals will give us a glimpse into the work they do, from how they create and communicate in their job to how they define professional writing.

The Fall series will kick off on October 5. Until then, get inspired by browsing our past interviews with young professionals.

Tell us about your educational/professional background.
I have a B.A. in English from Grand Valley State University and recently completed an M.A. in Digital Rhetoric and Professional Writing at Michigan State University, with a certificate in Serious Game Design.

Work-wise, I have been at MSU Outreach and Engagement since October 2004, though only recently as a full-time employee. I also do freelance editing for Joe Darden, Professor of Geography at MSU, and helped develop the Beginning Farmers website for Taylor Reid in Community, Agriculture, Recreation, and Resource Studies.

Tell us about your current job.
Outreach and Engagement’s mission is to promote and support outreach work and scholarship across the entire university. My unit works mostly on content development and distribution–so reports, websites, brochures, conference support, ad infinitum. I help maintain three websites, write stories for our annual magazine, and, most frequently, design and edit scholarly reports. Thus far, my freelance work has been of a similar nature.

What does a typical day look like for you?
I get to work at about 8:00 and spend the first few minutes settling in (checking email, getting coffee from the coffee shop upstairs, etc.). Then I start tackling my to-do list, which today includes editing two stories for our magazine and switching out photos for a manual I designed. Whenever I have freelance work, I pick away at it for an hour or two in the evening, or for a few hours on Sunday afternoons (unless the deadline is incredibly tight, I give myself Saturdays as a day of rest).

What kinds of documents do you produce?
Most of my projects are scholarly publications. Joe Darden, for example, researches racial inequality in Detroit, and he’ll send me, on average, a journal article, book chapter, or presentation once a month. At Outreach, the work is a bit more varied–the manual I’ve just finished, for example, is based on scholarship but is intended for parents of young children. It required quite a bit of graphic design work.

What communication skills are needed for your job?
A strong knowledge of grammar is an obvious necessity. Outreach is a highly collaborative organization, so good interpersonal skills are also helpful.

How did you prepare for your job?
When I started at Outreach, I didn’t do much to prepare. When I was in grad school, though, one of the more important things I did was to connect what I was learning directly with my work. When I was studying Web 2.0, for example, I focused my research and final project on an analysis of how Outreach could incorporate some of the tools and trends into our general workflow and end products. Such applied learning improved both my coursework and my work there.

List three of your favorite professional resources/references/tools and tell us why they’re your favorite.
PSDTuts and VectorTuts – If there’s ever a slow period at work, I pull up a tutorial and start picking away at it. It’s a great way of learning and practicing Photoshop and Illustrator.

Google Scholar – It’s a great way of verifying references for scholarly publications.

A good pair of earphones – One of the problems with a highly collaborative environment is that there’s always someone walking through my office suite, frequently to talk to someone else. It’s a lot easier to focus with music right in my ears. If I’m ever at an office that bans Internet radio or audio CDs on work computers, I’m investing in an iPod.

How do you stay up-to-date in your field?
I read or skim a lot of blogs and follow a few people strategically on Twitter. My boss is also good at keeping us up-to-date on new trends and software.

How would you define professional writing?
The short answer is that it involves writing nonfiction pieces for diverse audiences with a common need (aka consumers). Of course, professional writers have a much more complex role than that; we write and edit, yes, but we also do consumer research and design work. The actual written portion may only be 10% of the work done on any given project.

Do you have any tips to share with other professional designers/writers/editors?
If there’s ever any down time at work, never let it go to waste. Use it to learn a new skill (for me, that’s Photoshop and Illustrator) or read up on your field. Additionally, carefully craft an online presence through your blog and through social networking, and Google your name periodically to make sure you’re happy with what comes up. Potential future employers certainly will.

Tell us about your educational/professional background.
I graduated with a degree in professional writing from MSU in 2008. While at State I worked as a writing and digital consultant at the Writing Center and as an editorial assistant for Fourth Genre, MSU’s literary magazine of nonfiction. Currently I am a graduate student at Eastern Washington University (EWU) studying fiction writing.

Tell us about your current job.
I hold two different positions right now. I work as a web designer and technical writer for Online Learning at EWU. Online Learning basically encompasses all of the online courses and the resources required to maintain them, and so I spend a lot of time working in Blackboard LMS or making updates to the various websites that fall under the umbrella of my division.

My other position is web editor for Willow Springs, EWU’s literary magazine of poetry, prose, and interviews. I am responsible for updating and maintaining the Willow Springs website, which can mean anything from fixing typos and updating staff lists to creating new graphics and contacting authors for featured content. Since this position is also part of the management team, I also get to work in some other areas such as manuscript screening and copyediting.

What does a typical day look like for you?
With Online Learning I usually come in, touch base with my boss on project progress, and then get to work on whatever that project may be. I usually spend at least a part of my day fighting with our CMS (also known as making web edits) and writing or editing help sheets. Right now I’m also in the middle of a transcription project, so I spend a lot of time typing.

With Willow Springs my days are even less structured. Right now I’m getting ready for a sizable release of new content (author profiles and interviews), but I’m also working with two other graduate students to change the website from HTML to PHP, so that’s taking up a lot of time.

What kinds of documents do you produce?
Help sheets, web page text, transcription files, closed-captioned lectures, product research reports, and style manuals for my position with Online Learning. It’s primarily web pages for Willow Springs, though I’ll be interviewing an author next month as well.

What communication skills are needed for your jobs?
Strong written and verbal communication skills, absolutely! A lot of what I produce is digital, so I also have to take those elements into account. Both of my positions bring me into contact with people of a variety of technical backgrounds, so I constantly have to evaluate my audience and adapt my communication methods accordingly.

How did you prepare for your jobs?
I don’t feel like I did a lot of conscious preparation other than attend my professional writing classes back at MSU. The intersection of writing and technology has always been something I’ve been drawn to, and so I’ve never really had to go out of my way to prepare. I guess for Willow Springs I did some background research into the journal itself.

List three of your favorite professional resources/references/tools and tell us why they’re your favorite.
www.good-tutorials.com – a great resource for graphic design tutorials, primarily with Photoshop and Flash, but there’s sometimes some PHP or Illustrator or the like.

Literary magazines and journals and their websites – I don’t tend to have specific ones that I read on a regular basis, but it’s the only real way for me to stay current in such a subjective and changing industry.

Style manuals – We primarily use APA with Online Learning, but we also have a few in-house manuals (different depending on what the document’s intended audience and purpose is). With Willow Springs we use Chicago.

How do you stay up-to-date in your field?
Can I lump all the blogs I read into one answer? I read maybe two dozen blogs–on topics from creative writing, publishing, and grammar to graphic design, web design, and Photoshop–and it’s these more than anything that keep me up to date.

How would you define professional writing?
Audience-driven communication. It encompasses so much more than words printed on a page but it’s always writing created with the audience as a primary concern.

Do you have any tips to share with other professional designers/writers/editors?
Don’t be afraid to go for something that’s beyond your current comfort level. I had zero technical writing experience before my current job, but I was able to get it by playing up my current skills and how they showcased my ability to learn other skills quickly. So when you’re looking at requirements for a new job, don’t be afraid to go for it if it doesn’t seem like a perfect fit. You’d be surprised (or maybe not…) at how versatile the skills of a professional writer are.

Tell us about your educational/professional background.
I double majored at MSU in Spanish and Professional Writing. I plan to pursue a master’s degree next – hopefully soon!

Tell us about your current job.
Publication’s International, Ltd. (PIL) is a privately owned Children’s Book Publishing company in the suburbs of Illinois. We create two different types of Children’s books: Electronic books (with all sorts of buttons that play sound effects, music, voices, etc.) and Quiet books (your typical storybooks without any sound component). We create books that feature licensed characters.

So for example, we work with Disney to create books featuring the Disney Princesses, Cars, Finding Nemo, High School Musical, Hannah Montana, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, etc. (the list goes on and on).  Additionally, we work with Sesame Street, Nickelodeon, HIT Entertainment (Thomas the Tank Engine), Marvel, Dreamworks, and more.

My title is Associate Acquisitions Editor, but being an acquisitions editor at PIL is quite different than a typical publishing company. We do not accept outside manuscript submissions from anyone, because we create everything ourselves in-house. We have teams of editors, art directors, production editors, sound designers, animators, etc. that are assigned to each project. Every acquisitions editor in my department is assigned a different licensor that she works with daily. I am the acquisitions editor for Disney! Well, actually, since Disney is our biggest account, we had to split it in half. So I am responsible for all of Disney Quiet Books and another girl is in charge of Disney Electronic Books.

What does a typical day look like for you?
I can’t tell you what a typical day is like, because everyday is totally different! This is a major perk to my job, because I’m never bored. My job is sort of like being the middle man between Disney and our team at PIL. Everything that we produce has to be approved by Disney. So I submit every stage of every book to them.

Then, Disney will make comments, changes, suggestions, demands (haha, but seriously), etc. on each submission. I relay that information to our team who then makes the changes and continues on to the next stage of the book.

Of course, I do all kinds of other things too, like reading scripts for Disney/Pixar movies before anyone else does (major perk!), hiring artists to illustrate various books, helping prepare materials for presentations, etc.

What kinds of documents do you produce?
I’d say the number one thing is e-mail. I am constantly e-mailing my contacts at Disney on a daily basis. Other documents would include things like contract requests, project requests, review forms, etc.

What communication skills are needed for your job?
Well, with the constant e-mailing, obviously good writing skills are a must. I had to learn how to write in a professional manner. Sometimes, I even have to argue back to Disney when we really don’t want to change something that they have requested. So I had to learn how to argue professionally! Speaking skills are a must as well, as I sometimes hold phone conferences with the Disney folks and often times present new material to our PIL teams.

How did you prepare for your job?
Well I began working at PIL as an assistant. This really allowed me to learn all the different aspects of the company and absorb everything that the acquisitions editors around me were doing. Once I got promoted, it was a smooth transition!

List three of your favorite professional resources/references/tools and tell us why they’re your favorite.
The internet! There is so much useful information that comes in handy!

How do you stay up-to-date in your field?
I’m constantly reading new information that Disney provides on their various websites about new movies, initiatives etc. There are also a few websites I frequent from time to time that provide updates on what is going on in the licensing world.

How would you define professional writing?
Oh man, this is the question I always dreaded in PW classes! Professional Writing encompasses so much that it’s almost too hard to sum it all up!

Do you have any tips to share with other professional designers/writers/editors?
Don’t be afraid to step up and take on more responsibility. When I was told I was being promoted to work with Disney, I almost passed out. Being in charge of one of the biggest accounts is a lot of pressure, but I am utterly grateful for the chance to prove myself and push myself to learn more and more everyday.

The videos cover:

• skills developed in core PW classes
• types of careers available to PW students
• types of media a PW student will use
• what distinguishes PW from other writing-based majors
• how PW alums have found their training useful

Check out the videos to see not only what MSU’s PW program offers students, but also to get some excellent language on what professional writing is and why professional writers are essential.

For example, one of the videos includes a great quote from Marissa Hayes, MSU PW alum, about what professional writers do:

“Professional writers can efficiently communicate both onscreen and in print through writing, design, and style. Professional writers have the ability to thoughtfully support their decisions and methods through clear and concise interpretations and explanations. Our experience with visual and document design, rhetorical principles, web authoring, and a range of writing in different contexts makes us more cultivated professionals.”

Head over to the student-produced Viva PW site for more information about professional writing skills and careers.