Writing Assignment for 4-18 March: Draft a Cover Letter

On 18 March, bring in a hard copy of a draft of your cover letter. We'll use these in class to practice how to revise and proofread.

Discussion and reading for 4-18 March:

So far, we've been completely focused on academic writing, but the main reason most of us learn to write for college is that college writing helps you when you write in your career and life.

For instance, when you apply to a professional job, internship, or salaried position, you write something called a cover letter. Cover letters are one to two pages long, and you write them to get your reader to offer you an interview. To get a busy person who had a pile of other letters in front of her to pick you to interview, you have to think about what this person needs to hear:

1) What experience do you have which qualifies you for the job?
2) Why are you applying for the job?
3) What can you do for the company that other candidates may not be able to do.

Too often, folks make the mistake of writing a generic cover letter that they send to everyone, but the easiest way to make your letter stand out is to do some research about the company to which you are applying and explain how you fit their needs.

Virginia Tech as a web page with some good general advice on writing cover letters:

http://www.career.vt.edu/JOBSEARC/coversamples.htm

Read Tech's advice and read this advice:

http://www.ccs.neu.edu/co-op/Manual/Coverletters.html

Finally, whenever you begin writing in a new genre, you should spend some time online researching advice on how to write in your genre. Go to google, enter the search "How to write cover letter." Read several of the sites and pull out the best advice you find. Use this advice as your revise your letter.