What You Will Learn and Practice
- Analyze the rhetorical situation and determine the appropriate audience or users of written communication, considering the needs of global audiences and people with disabilities. [CLO 1]
- Use conventions of various workplace genres, such as proposals, instructions, correspondence, reports, and slide decks, with understanding of how the genre conventions can be used as heuristics and as principles of arrangement. [CLO 4]
- Identify and apply the principles of effective style in the composing of usable, reader-centered written communications. [CLO 7]
What I Want You to Do
Create a professional biographical statement that tells everyone in the class about your background, your work, and your interests. A professional bio is often used in the workplace as an introduction of a new employee or when an employee takes on new responsibilities (like a promotion). On campus, your department or college may post professional bios when they give out awards and special honors.
Why I Want You to Do It
At this point in your college progress, you probably have a resume. You may even have a job secured for the future, after you graduate. This assignment is a kind of job application project (since it includes details from your resume or cover letter), but it asks you to frame the details differently. Your biographical statement tells the world who you are as a professional in your career field, what you value, and what your goals are.
We will use them in this class to introduce ourselves to one another. I want you to write something more than the boring self-introduction discussion thread, and this project gets beyond that kind of writing while also letting you practice a kind of writing frequently used in the workplace. You will use these bios to find classmates who you can work with during the term.
Where You Can Find Help
There are many options for help with your bio. Choose the ones that fit your career field and/or that seem most useful to you. I do not expect you to read all of these. You should definitely look at some example bios so that you know what your bio should look like.
- Websites:
- How to Write a Professional Bio as a College Student (Pullman Foundation)
- How to Write Short Company Newsletter Bios of Employees (eHow)
- Transform Staff Bios from Mundane to Magical in 6 Easy Steps (GettingAttention.org)
- “Meet the Team” Pages: Examples and Trends (Smashing Magazine)
- How to Write a Short Bio About Yourself (Chron)
- How to Write a Snappy, Tight Professional Bio (NBC Chicago)
- How to Write a Sample Self-Bio at a New Job (Global Post)
- Top Ten Tips for Writing a Professional Overview or Biography (Ezine @rticles)
- How to Write A Bio- Tips for Building Your Personal Brand (Brand Yourself)
- Samples of Professional Branding Statements (Dummies.com)
- Example Professional Bios:
When to Do It
- Due Date: By 11:59 PM on Friday, January 28, 2022.
- End of Grace Period: If you need more time, use the grace period and submit your work by 11:59 PM on Wednesday, January 26, 2022.
Why? Introductions to the class need to happen at the beginning of the course. They don’ t make sense at the end of the term so this activity has a five-day grace period.
How You Do It
- Think about the specific audience and purpose for your bio:
Audience Purpose Classmates Tell them who you are so that you feel comfortable working together and can set up an accountability group Traci (your teacher) Tell me who you are and what you’re interested in so that I can provide more effective feedback - Write your biography statement here in this Discussion in Canvas. Write directly in Canvas so that readers do not need to download a document to find out who you are. The idea is to make it easy for your reader.
- Keep the following requirements in mind as you write:
- Include strong, specific details that tell readers who you are and help them get to know you.
- Use current information. Don’t make up anything. Your readers want to know who you really are.
- Add a photo to your bio that connects to the info in your bio. It doesn’t have to be a photo of yourself, but it can be. You can include more than one photo if you want to. Here are some examples of kinds of photos that work:
Tip: Avoid photos from prom, Ring Dance, and weddings. They look out of place because they are not from a setting that connects to your career field.
- A business-casual or business photo of yourself.
- A photo of a pet, and you mention the pet in your bio (especially useful if you are in pre-Vet or Animal Sciences).
- A photo of yourself doing something relevant to your career (like working on a construction site if you’re a Building Construction major).
- A photo of yourself participating in a hobby or special interests (like an outlook on a hiking trial for someone interested in hiking or backpacking). Again be sure you talk about the hobby or special interest in your bio.
- Read back through the posts from your classmates to find people you can connect with or whom you already know.
How to Assess & Track Your Work
You track your own work in this course. Be sure to complete the following tasks:
- Track your work in your Weekly Work Log.
Work is always marked as either 1 for Complete or 0 for Incomplete:
- I will mark this activity Complete in Canvas Grades, usually within 24–48 hours after the end of the grace period.
- I will mark this activity Incomplete in Canvas Grades if you do not submit your log by the end of the grace period.