OER for COLFA

People’s viewing habits are changing as they migrate to mobile sources, social media, and kitten videos. Television News is still a dominant #1 source, and radio is still the safest way to stay informed in your car. Hopefully, you already have some journalism background. This book does not teach the who, what, when, where, why, and how of reporting; its goal is to teach how to present the journalism you already know via electronic media, primarily television.

Good writing skills are important in today’s competitive work environment. This is especially the case for communication-related professions such as public relations, brand communication, journalism, and marketing. Writing for Strategic Communication Industries emphasizes practical application of academic inquiry to help readers improve their writing skills. This book gives readers:

Straightforward chapters that use real-world examples to illustrate key points.
Discussion of different writing styles and techniques.
Examples of communication materials such as press releases, creative briefs, feature articles, and more.
Embedded videos of insights from communication professionals.
Tips on pitching to the media.
A collection of popular sources for further explanation.

The primary audience for this book starts with students in Journalism 302: Infomania, a course we teach at the University of Kansas. When they take this class, these students usually are in their second or third semesters in the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications. They have varied career aspirations. A few of them want to be “traditional” journalists, writing for online news sites, magazines, or newspapers. Some of them want to be broadcast journalists. Many of them want to work in strategic communications, which encompasses public relations, advertising, marketing, and related fields.

Digital Foundations uses formal exercises of the Bauhaus to teach the Adobe Creative Suite. All students of digital design and production—whether learning in a classroom or on their own—need to understand the basic principles of design in order to implement them using current software. Far too often design is left out of books that teach software for the trade and academic markets. Consequently, the design software training exercise is often a lost opportunity for visual learning. This revised edition updates the original text for use with Adobe Creative Cloud 2017 software.

The Writing Spaces Web Writing Style Guide was created as a crowdsourcing project of Collaborvention 2011: A Computers and Writing Unconference. College writing teachers from around the web joined together to create this guide (see our Contributors list). The advice within it is based on contemporary theories and best practices.

While the text was originally written for students in undergraduate writing classes, it can also be a suitable resource for other writers interested in learning more about writing for the web.

This document is available as a web text for reading online, a printer-friendly PDF, and an EPUB ereader versions.

An introductory textbook on small group problem solving and communication.