Lose the ego. It's a difficult lesson, albeit an important one. Amateurs guard every word as if it were their last. Professionals are willing to splice, dice, and re-create their work to make it better.
Typos on resumes are never acceptable. If there's a tie between potential candidates, the resume with no typos will always win.
Writers and communicators are necessary to the success of virtually every business in the world. From President Bush's speech writers to the media relations specialists who help land their company's story on Page One of the New York Times, no smart company can do without communicators.
If anyone ever tries to tell you that English majors can't find jobs, don't believe it! Today's authors, magazine editors, freelance writers, graduate students, reporters, advertising agency executives, communications specialists, speech writers, actors, Web masters, and teachers were yesterday's English students.
"Literature sets me free from the responsibilities of this world, and at the same time it ties me down to those same responsibilities."
—Ryan McGinty
I teach a variety of general education courses—First-Term Seminar, Appreciation of Fiction, Appreciation of Literature—but my regular courses are the Survey of British Literature from 1789 to the present, The British Novel, Studies in Romanticism, and The Victorian…
