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.
"The best of my English teachers taught us literature because they wanted the art of it to expand our minds and help teach us new ways of seeing the world."
—Sybylla Yeoman Hendrix
I teach a variety of courses, from FTS to American Literature to creative writing; my main area of…