Professional Writing

Minor
18 Credit Hours

This program is offered by the College of Humanities and Social Sciences/English Department and is only available at the St. Louis main campus.

For information on the general requirements for a minor, see Minor under the Academic Policies and Information section of this catalog.

Program Description

The minor in professional writing is designed for students who want to learn about - and prepare to meet - the writing and other communication challenges found in business, nonprofit, governmental, and community settings.

Students who pursue the minor can choose from courses in areas such as journalism, writing for public relations and advertising, screenplay and scriptwriting, creative writing, and business and technical writing, as well as editing, linguistics and rhetoric, and cross-cultural communication.

Required Courses

• WRIT 2400 Introduction to Professional Writing (3 hours)
• One other course listed below with the WRIT prefix (3 hours)

12 credit hours from the following courses:

• ADVT 2910 Writing for Advertising (3 hours)
• ANSO 2060 Culture and Communication (3 hours)
• ENGL 2150 Creative Writing: Poetry (3 hours)
• ENGL 2160 Creative Writing: Fiction (3 hours)
• ENGL 2170 Creative Writing: Playwriting (3 hours)
• ENGL 2180 Creative Writing: Nonfiction (3 hours)
• ENGL 2600 Introduction to Linguistics (3 hours)
• INTM 2000 Strategic Writing for Interactive Media (3 hours)
• JOUR 1030/1031 Multimedia News Reporting I  (2 hours + 1-hour lab)
• JOUR 2140/2141 Multimedia News Reporting II (2 hours + 1-hour lab)
• JOUR 2170 Multimedia News Editing (3 hours)
• JOUR 3130 Feature Writing (3 hours)
• JOUR 4170 Investigative Journalism (3 hours)
• JOUR 4380 Magazine Journalism (3 hours)
• MDST 1050 Media Writing (3 hours)
• PBRL 2920 Writing for Public Relations (3 hours)
• SCPT 2900 Scriptwriting (3 hours)
• SCPT 3300 Writing the Short Script (3 hours)
• SCPT 3400 Television Scriptwriting (3 hours)
• SCPT 3500 Writing Screenplays for Film (3 hours)
• SPCM 3600 Rhetoric (3 hours)
• WRIT 2072 Writing for Social Change (3 hours)
• WRIT 2090 Writing in the Workplace (3 hours)
• WRIT 2500 Writing About Science (3 hours)
• WRIT 3100 Report and Proposal Writing (3 hours)
• WRIT 3200 Technical Writing (3 hours)
• WRIT 3300 Solving Information Problems (3 hours)
• WRIT 3400 Editing and Style (3 hours)

Students should consult with the professional writing program advisor in order to tailor the program to their specific interests.