Professional Writing and Communication

Below is a list of courses you may study in Professional Writing and Communication. To view more details visit the program information page for the Bachelor of Arts or Diploma in Arts. 

Level One

Writing Creatively (WRIT1200) 

Presents the essentials of creativity, writing and storytelling for communication professionals and media producers. You will be introduced to fundamental principles and practices of writing, including creativity and design, reader engagement, storytelling, and the editing process.

Multimedia (COMU1140) 

Introduces yow to distribute a storyworld over a variety of media platforms. You will be taught how to critically pair creative content and information with digital media. It also introduces you to both analyse and create transmedia narratives, drawing on a variety of different genres and media platforms. You will hone a set of media production skills, including audio-visual digital media as well as verbal presentation skills.

Public Relations Writing (COMU1152) 

Develops hands-on skills in writing, editing, and designing effective promotional publications and creating/producing strategic materials. In this rich immersion experience, you will be introduced to the creating, editing, and delivering of PR messages, collaterals, and the many forms of public relations writing. You will produce work within traditional and new media environments, for a real client.

Level Two

Writing & Editing for the Professions (WRIT2000)

Covers key theoretical principles and practical applications of writing in a corporate environment. This course will cover a broad range of workplace writing genres, including report writing, speechwriting, presentations, and correspondence. Topics include creating credibility at word, sentence, paragraph, and document levels: and revising, editing, and proofreading professional documents.

Media Design (COMU2120) 

Develops skills for integrated design, production, and distribution of media content. The course incorporates text, audio, visual, interactive, and graphic design elements with the aim of designing media to achieve a social goal.

Communication Law and Ethics (COMU2160)

Examines regulations, laws and ethical issues that impact on communication practitioners and journalists. You will cover a broad range of fields within modern democracies including free speech, privacy, contempt, defamation, copyright, freedom of information and confidentiality.

Performative Communication: Presentation and Public Speaking (DRAM2400) 

Develops your public presentation and performance skills. Taught in a workshop environment, it will provide essential training in physical and vocal communication, argument structure, and pitching to an audience. You will hone your ability to structure and argument, be physically and vocally commanding and engaging, and pitch a presentation or performance to an audience. This course draws on a variety of methodologies including (but not limited to) classical rhetoric, the Linklater voice method, and scenic improvisation.

Writing: Grammar, Syntax, and Style (WRIT2250) 

Introduces contemporary models and applications of English grammar and presents contemporary grammatical and stylistic concepts and strategies that will enhance your ability to revise and edit their writing. Building on your intuitive understanding of how words work, equipping you with a command of sentence structure and style, and provide you with strategies to write, analyse, and edit at an advanced level.

Level Three

Publishing, Editing, and Authorship (WRIT3700) 

Examines a range of issues in contemporary publishing in both an Australian and an international context. The approach is forward-looking, emphasising the changing nature of publishing, editing, and authorship in the post-digital era. You will be prepared for careers as authors, editors, and publishers: by introducing you to current professional practices and conditions of authorship; by developing fundamental skills at all levels of editing; and by exploring contemporary print and digital publishing practices and processes.

Digital Project (COMU3100) 

You will undertake original research and produce a publicly accessible digital media product that may examine a significant political, social, or cultural issue. This course enables you to synthesise knowledge and connect theory with practice. You will also explore ways of distributing your work via traditional and new-and-emerging media relevant to your proposed audience.

Political Communication (COMU3222) 

Examines how individuals and groups communicate about political ideas, processes and themes, and the communication strategies and tactics they use to put their messages across. Political communication is strategic communication on politics. It aims to study how political and media players get themes into the political agenda to build power, identity, and community through communication.

Creative Writing: Non-fiction (WRIT3050) 

Introduces the skills for writing creative non-fiction in a range of styles including memoir, literary journalism, the personal essay, and experimental non-fiction. You will learn how to turn your own experiences and research into compelling non-fiction writing. This course shows creative non-fiction uses familiar tools from fiction and poetry including narration, scene-setting, dialogue, imagery, and figurative language to tell vivid, real-life stories.

Professional Writing graduates have the expertise to succeed in communication roles across a range of industries, including social media management, technical writing and editing, grant-writing and copy-writing. We prepare you for the writing and communication tasks you’ll encounter across every stage of your life and career, and help you apply your knowledge of writing and communication to solve problems and effect change in your workplaces and communities.

Potential career outcomes include:

• Content writer
• Copywriter
• Corporate communications officer
• Digital content writer
• Editor
• Publisher
• Author
• Media and communications officer
• Proposal writer