Writing Literacy
Writing literacy for chosen audiences, including the ability to draft and format an essay within a communication situation demonstrated by the in an appropriate citation style.
Writing literacy may have been the most challenging of all the learning outcomes for me. It wasn’t the frequency we were required to write or the length of the papers. The most challenging part was learning to write in American Psychological Association (APA) style. Scientific writing is vastly different from the business writing I have become accustomed to throughout my professional career. Writing for the social and behavioral sciences is much more technical and concise and that took me some time to get used too. Changing the way, you have written your entire life doesn’t come without a struggle. However, after a few papers, routine use of Purdue OWL and numerous post-it notes marking pages in my APA Manual it became easier. You remember how to format an essay correctly: the running head, title page, how to credit sources accurately, in text citations, references and so on.
Writing literacy went beyond learning how to properly write a research paper in APA format to adapting that style into other forms of writing assignments. For instance, writing a script for my weekly podcasts in Communication Fluency was much different than writing a research paper on how Ruth Bader Ginsburg became a pop culture icon to Millennials. The weekly podcasts had to summarize theories and their meanings into a few paragraphs and often included our own experiences and impressions about the readings. In comparison to the research proposal or inquiry project, which is driven by our interest in a topic, and later substantiated by peer reviewed literature, a qualitative or quantitative methodology section and concludes with expected results or implications for future research. A research paper is usually a minimum of fifteen pages and often exceeds twenty pages and demands a more detailed and thorough examination of your chosen compared to a podcast script or blog post.
Another form of writing literacy was obtained in writing a strategic communication plan for a company who had suffered a threat to their reputation. My strategic plan was written to aid the Honest Co. rebuild trust with their consumers after they were sued for misleading advertising and the use of unsafe ingredients in their products. The plan analyzed the current state and future state of the company and outlined the steps needed to accomplish the rebuilding of their reputation and trust with their consumers. The application of Habermas’ Theory of Communicative Action provided a tool to determine where and why the public lost their trust in the Honest Co. messaging about using safer and healthier products. Putnam’s theory of Social Capital was used to develop the future state of the plan and showcase what the company must do to rebuild the social capital they once hand with their devoted customer base. An executive summary and analysis of the situation along with the market impacts to the company were written and presented to the executives in the form of a Strategic Communication Plan. The plan detailed what steps the company would take in order to begin to repair their damaged reputation and rebuild the trust of their loyal customers.
While these three assignments were formatted similarly in APA style, they were written for vastly different audiences: peers, academics and professors and business executives. Learning and understanding how and when to adapt your writing style in a workplace environment is certainly a useful and necessary skill to have and in looking to the future the combination of these three types of writing have made me a better writer and increased my ability to adapt to different situations quickly.
Below are two examples of my writing literacy assignments:
Honest Co. Strategic Communication Plan