Wednesday, Jan. 21 / 11:00 - 11:45 a.m. / Online Info-session via Zoom

• Join Zoom meeting
• Meeting ID: 912 5725 9201
• Password:  145035

Thursday, Feb. 5 / 2:30 - 4:00 p.m. / In-person workshop in Denney 311

If you cannot make it to a workshop, please schedule a consultation with the coordinator to discuss your questions. You can discuss the following with the coordinator before the application deadline:

• how to choose your writing samples
• broad questions about the process / your fit with the internship options
• possibility of using an internship you have already obtained for the capstone
• choosing best samples for your career interests

The coordinator cannot review your portfolio for editing or accuracy before you formally submit your application.

Email ⁠profwriting@osu.edu to schedule a time to meet M-F between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.

You are eligible to apply for the capstone internship if, by the time you enroll in the capstone internship, you will have completed:

• 6 credit hours from Minor requirements
  • See the Minor in Professional Writing advising sheet if you started at Ohio State before autumn 2023
  • Refer to the tabs on our home page if you started at Ohio State during or after autumn 2023
• English 4150: Cultures of Professional Writing

Students who have taken all 3 electives courses before they apply are the most successful in the portfolio review process, but you are eligible to apply even if you are completing these requirements during the semester you are applying.

Best Works Portfolio

Your three writing samples comprise a best works portfolio. This means you choose three of your best pieces of writing, but then you edit, edit, edit to make them work-world-ready--that is, completely clean with no grammatical or editing errors.

Your portfolio is not meant to represent who you were when you first wrote your pieces, so review and revise them now to make sure they showcase impeccable writing skills.

Where You Can Find Pieces

You may have writing samples from past internships, jobs or extracurriculars. Your sample could be an internal memo, a professional letter or email to an organization or an internal training manual. If you don’t have samples from prior work experience, you have plenty of material from coursework, especially any course in communications or if you took Business Writing (English 3304) or Technical Writing (English 3305).

Length and Content Guidelines

Your three pieces should demonstrate variety: variety of genres, variety of styles, variety of contexts and variety of purposes. They should also demonstrate the kinds of skills you want to contribute to a workplace during your internship. 

A portfolio piece should, in general, be no more than around 500 words or 3 pages maximum, though this is a rough rule, not a hard and fast one. However, if a piece is much longer, you can choose an excerpt and explain how it fits into the larger piece in some introductory text.

Here are some possible different genres you might include:

• press release and/or media release
• feature or news article
• formal business letter for a particular, complex rhetorical situation (but not a simple email)
• memo
• blog post
• marketing web copy
• social media campaign plan (either a full campaign plan complete with posting schedule and sample posts; or samples from Cultures of Professional Writing / English 4150, which do not include a full campaign plan but have explanation of rhetorical situation, your reasons for particular choices of platform, word choices, etc.).
• other marketing materials
• official materials for any club or organization you contribute to--newsletters or organization constitution
• brief course paper (consider choosing a section of no more than approximately three pages)
• slide decks
• creative nonfiction, as long as it showcases something professional for workplaces (As much as poetry is wonderful, avoid this. It does not demonstrate enough for our workplace partners.)

This is not an exhaustive list of potential writing samples--just something to get you started. Attend the Portfolio Prep Workshop or consult with the coordinator if you want to talk through other ideas.

Rhetorical Situation of this Cover Letter

Normally, a cover letter makes the case that you are qualified to perform the duties listed in a particular job description. The cover letter for the Minor in Professional Writing is different because you don't yet know where you'll be interning. Right now, you are applying for placement in an MPW capstone internship rather than for a specific internship. This means your audience is the Minor in the Professional Writing, not a specific worksite.

So, while in a traditional cover letter, you use your work experience explain why you're a good fit for a specific position, in this cover letter, you focus on your writing samples and skills. Even though your evidence is different, you make the same rhetorical moves.

This cover letter does three main things:

1. introduces and explains your writing samples (instead of your work history)
2. analyzes the writing skills those samples demonstrate and,
3. connects the skills in your samples to the skills many of our workplace partners need, thus persuading your audience that you are prepared to succeed in a writing internship.

Address your cover letter to Dr. Yanar Hashlamon, Coordinator, Minor in Professional Writing, and format it as a formal business letter.

Visit the sections below for more details.

Detailed Guidelines

Brief introductory paragraph

• ​Explain your purpose: To apply for placement in a capstone internship in the Minor in Professional Writing. 
• Give a brief explanation of your fit. Based on what you bring to a potential internship, how will the internship (which will be writing-based, but could be in any number of industries) connect with your larger career goals? Cover letters should show enthusiasm for an industry or field, but more than focusing on what you'll gain from this, emphasize how much you have to offer the internship sites. 
• End on a clear statement summarizing the writing skills and soft skills you will bring to the workplace.

Tip: Great cover letters project into the future and demonstrate that the writer is already envisioning translating their experience into different tasks at the new job. 

Body paragraphs (this is the bulk of the cover letter). Introduce your reader to each writing sample so they understand it and why you chose it. 

• Quickly name the genre of the piece or what outlet you wrote it for. Explain the purpose and audience of the piece.
• Name the context in which you wrote the piece. (ex: a communications class). Your reader does not need detailed information about the course name or number.
• Explain the writing skills, your rhetorical choices, and how they are effective for your genre, audience, purpose, situation, etc. (Rather than saying, “This demonstrates rhetoric” or “This demonstrates logos,” you can say, “To accomplish X with audience Y, I did Z….[and give details].”)
  • See “What you Can Write” to brainstorm specific tasks you might connect to your writing skills internships.
• If you wrote the piece with a group and you were not responsible for the entire excerpt you included, clarify what parts you were responsible for.

Conclusion paragraph

• Synthesize what your 3 samples show, overall, about your range of writing skills. Do they showcase mostly two main areas of professional writing you want to highlight? Do they show how you’re especially skilled with research and data? Something else?
• Establish a “forward looking” statement where you talk about how you “will use” your skills to do X and Y during the internship. This shows you imagining succeeding in the internship.

Read six cover letter samples.

Notice the range of samples past applicants have chosen, as well as how they discuss their samples and connect them to workplace needs.

Rhetorical Situation of the Resume

A resume is fundamentally a persuasive document. It convinces your reader that your qualifications, skills, experiences and achievements are both impressive and directly related to the job you want. If you need help getting started on a resume, see the Identifying Accomplishments for Your Resume handout from ASC Center for Career and Professional Success for help brainstorming general resume content and review this example general resume for formatting ideas.

Choosing What to Include

Your resume for the Minor in Professional Writing internship should highlight writing skills and writing-related achievements. There are no set rule for how to do this. Every decision you make is contextual and depends on how related your experience is to writing. You don’t have to include everything you've done, especially if something doesn't showcase writing skills. However, you also don’t have to delete non-writing related jobs, especially if doing so would leave you with empty space on your resume.

Your priorities in developing this resume are:

• Emphasizing professional writing experience first, then professional/communication experience.
• Filling the page with appropriate content. Don’t delete non-writing experience and leave a big blank white space.

Titling Sections

Many resume templates force you to organize your information a certain way, for instance to separate experience by “Work” (paid) and “Volunteer” or "Internship" (unpaid) positions. To get the writing experience together at the top of the page, consider re-structuring with sections like “Writing Experience,” “Editing Experience” or “Professional Writing Experience,” and then “Other Professional Experience.”

Writing Strong Bullets

A resume bullet-point does not just report the tasks or the duties you had to do in your job. It frames your work experience as accomplishments or achievements, your contribution to the organization. A great bullet-point starts from brainstorming three main parts: your action, the issue your action addressed for the organization, and the result your action had. For details and examples, check out the “Step 5: Get some AIR into your Resume” section of the Identifying your Accomplishments handout from ASC Career Success.

Choosing Action Verbs

When possible, lead with strong verbs that highlight communication, writing, and professional skills. For help brainstorming, see Action Verbs for Resume Development from ASC Career Success.

Read sample resume structures.

This file provides different resume structures past applicants chose depending on how much writing experience they had. This will be helpful if you are not sure what to include to make your resume writing-based. 

Read two sample writing-based resumes.

These resumes showcase successful accomplishment-based bullet-points and compelling, relevant action verbs.

1. Collect 5 separate files--one for each document (cover letter, resume, and three writing samples).
2. Save each file as a separate pdf files.
3. Use these file naming conventions.
   • Lastname Firstname Cover Letter
   • Lastname Firstname Resume
   • Lastname Firstname Sample 1
   • Lastname Firstname Sample 2
   • Lastname Firstname Sample 3

• If you would like to preview the questions on the application form before you enter the online system, download a pdf of the MPW Application form for reference. Do not submit a paper application.