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Chapter One
Choosing the Threads: My Introduction into Professional
Writing |
The pieces in this chapter represent two things: the writings of a beginning
professional writer and my introduction into hypertext. I wasn’t very sure
what "professional writing" was in those early days. I decided to pursue
this degree because I enjoyed writing and document design. The impetus
to begin this program was born out of complete curiosity about where this
pleasure might lead me. I had abandoned the idea of teaching French, my
undergraduate degree, and was embarking on what I believed to be a new
chapter in my life, although I always believed I would teach again someday.
I hoped graduate school would provide the intellectual stimulation I missed
from the latter years of college and was searching for a degree that could
mean many things to me and take me into many possible careers. I believe
this naiveté and uncertainty are evident in my writing. I assumed
everyone understood me. Therefore, my writing was unclear and underdeveloped
in the first two papers, "Investigative Report:
The Master of Arts in Professional Writing Home Page" and "Synopsis:
'The Electronic Manuscipt: Implications of Hypertext for Literacy' ."
However, what is most important from these first two papers is that I discovered
hypertext. Through writing and working collaboratively on the first paper,
I experienced and learned about what would soon become my locus of control,
the context through which I filtered everything I read and wrote, hypertext.
The final pieces are samples from the work I have produced at New Horizons-Holiday
Tours. As my skills changed and my ideas about document design were refined,
I began to create more effective marketing pieces for our company. I also
moved into the position of webmaster. This seemed like a natural transition
for me. I became a scavenger of web projects to hone my skills of design,
layout and code. I had many web projects during my graduate work at Kennesaw
State University, such as the first MAPW page and the "Dean’s Suite" for
the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. All of these projects
prepared me for heading up the creation of my company’s web presence. I
have sought to create a unifying look with this company. I believe the
web page has helped with that endeavor. We changed our logo on the front
cover of our catalogue to match the web page. Consistency is still something
for which I am striving with this company. There are many constraints that
inhibit that possibility; but, as professional writers, I believe we must
work towards helping entities find their identity through the written word
and design. Therefore, these projects represent me as a budding professional
writer then and an active professional writer now. |