Certificate in Professional Writing

The goal of the certificate program is to produce highly skilled professional writers who are valued for their skills throughout their professional lives. The high academic standards of the program are established in recognition of the fact that good writing is difficult to produce. The program requires students to advance beyond mere competence and strives to enable them to perform well in professional settings, where the ability to plan and execute work independently is sometimes crucial.

Total Hours Required

Completion of the certificate program requires 18 credit hours of coursework from the following list of approved courses.

Certificate Requirements

All courses are 3 credit hours, unless otherwise designated.

Note | The courses below are offered on a regular basis. Additional courses may be developed for the program over time.

Select three to six of these courses:

• ENG-W 231 Professional Writing Skills
• ENG-W 232 Introduction to Business Writing
• ENG-W 250 Writing in Context (variable topics)
• ENG-W 270 Argumentative Writing
• ENG-W 315 Writing for the Web
• ENG-W 350 Advanced Expository Writing
• ENG-W 367 Writing for Multiple Media

Select up to two of the following:

• JOUR-J 200 Reporting, Writing, and Editing I
• JOUR-J 341 Newspaper Reporting
• JOUR-J 401 Depth Reporting and Editing
• TEL-T 211 Writing for the Electronic Media

Select up to one of the following:

• ENG-W 203 Creative Writing
• ENG-W 260 Film Criticism
• ENG-W 270 Argumentative Writing
• ENG-W 301 Writing Fiction
• ENG-W 302 Screenwriting
• ENG-W 303 Writing Poetry
• ENG-W 401 Advanced Fiction Writing
• ENG-W 403 Advanced Poetry Writing
• ENG-W 511 Writing Fiction (4 cr.)
• ENG-W 513 Writing Poetry (4 cr.)
• JOUR-J 413 Magazine Article Writing
• TEL-T 331 Script Writing