At the University, I have been pursuing a Minor in Professional Writing. One of the classes that I am currently enrolled in for the minor, Artsci 4150, is all about cultures of professional writing. For the past few weeks, I have been working on a group project for my professional writing course. For this project, my two group members and I were assigned to contact two professional writers. Since all three of us were strategic communication majors interested in public relations, we decided to contact writing professionals specific to the field of public relations.
Public Relations professionals focus
on both traditional writing, like press releases and media advisories, as well
as writing for digital media, such as social media posts, website copy or grant
applications. There are several different types of
jobs in the PR field including corporate, agency, and nonprofit.
The first person that we decided to intern was Alyson Moses. Moses is a PR professional,
currently working at The Ohio State University as a lecturer and an adviser for
PRSSA. She was formerly the Senior Account Supervisor at
Edelman. Her specialty was corporate affairs
in the agency. Moses majored in Public relations and minored in
both Marketing and Spanish.
Moses started working in the agency setting of Edelman and
worked with over 40 different clients selling technology to
businesses. She said the job was kind of a sales
job because she was constantly persuading people. Moses moved from Edelman to Ohio State
shortly after her marriage. She says that her
corporate experiences can apply to the classroom: she’s taught executives how
to work with
the media in the boardroom, now she can take it to the classroom
and teach students how to do PR and writing and work for executives too.
Moses's Favorite aspects of PR writing include working with media and people, being a positive force, trying to persuade people, taking different perspectives, participating in events and writing articles. Some things that she finds to be challenging are that there is always an issue you have to resolve and that you must keep clients satisfied. Below is some of the advice that Alyson shared with me:
Advice:
•Focus on two things: your client and
the media.
•Check the news and trends each
morning.
•Have willingness to do things and be
positive
•Go for your dreams, but take
advantage of the opportunities that are where you're at now.
•Make yourself the PR pro to the
people around you
•Get equipped and build your
portfolio before searching for a career.
•The More internships you have, the
more connections you can make.
•Use personal connections, don't be
afraid to network.
To find out more about the professional writing minor, click here.
