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PPW
Community an on-line gathering place for students in Public & Professional Writing classes and in the PPW Certificate Program |
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Examples of Writing |
This page offers you links to example documents and guidelines for creating different types of public and professional writing. In any professional
setting—whether it is in the public (or governmental) sector, the
nonprofit sector, or the for-profit sector—there are common documents
whose forms are fairly standard (letters, memos, reports, and press releases,
for example). The predictable form of these documents allows readers to
access information quickly and allows them to compare information across
different documents. In many cases, you will not want to totally confound
your readers' expectations for a document. In the case of a resume, for
example, readers expect the document to fall into the recognizable resume
genre. If the resume doesn't look at all like what we imagine we should
see in a resume, we have to take some time to figure out how to read it.
Some readers may not take that time; others may be intrigued enough to
do it. As a writer, you have to weigh risks, think about what form offers
you and what it keeps you from, and then make some decisions. Knowing
simply how to format a commonly used document does not guarantee that
your version will be effective—format is a tiny part of the whole
process. The arguments you present, the evidence you provide, your language,
your style—all of these take a lot more work than correctly typing
a memo in memo format.
These sites offer some documents for free and require a fee for others: Internal memos offers collected memos from companies of all sizes. The Smoking Gun collects all kinds of official documents for their entertainment value.
The documents in this section range from those that use journalistic research and carefully designed presentations to educate or persuade audiences to those that digest the results of research in order to disseminate key findings. The State Initiatives in End-of-Life Care series informs policymakers about how public policy can be improved to ensure that more Americans get adequate end-of-life care. The Snapshots
series of the Aspen Institute's Nonprofit Sector Research Fund presents
key research findings in a reader-friendly format. Monster.com's Career Advice Center contains some sample interview letters, thank you letters, and even letters that try to do "damage control" after a poor interview. MonsterTrak offers tips on creating a resume and other job-seeking help. The Purdue OWL offers detailed information and examples to help you create effective job materials. A number of sites offer guidelines for constructing CVs: The University of
N. Carolina Office of Postdoctoral Services offers a
PDF document of guidelines for constructing a CV. Example CVs: an anthropology CV,
Communications
Consortium Media Center offers brief submission
guidelines for 100 newspapers and tips on writing op-eds. The University of Washington provides guidelines for creating press releases. The Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility at the University of Chicago offer An Anatomy of a Press Release.
Grant Proposals The Foundation Center presents a short course in proposal writing as well as many other resources for those seeking grants. The Carnegie Corporation of New York offers links to great resources on writing grant proposals. The Cornell Community and Rural Development Institute offers Finding the Funds You Need: A Guide for Grantseekers. Business Plans The Small Business Administration offers guidelines for business plans as well as links to examples.
Try Greg Markel's
tutorial on designing
for the web. |
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| Questions or comments? ppw@pitt.edu |
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