About PPW

Programs in Professional Writing is an instructional unit of the Department of English at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign that offers innovative and practical courses in technical and professional communication. We offer courses in support of the Professional Writing Major as well as courses that are consistently recommended to students in business, technology, and science majors to fill the University's Comp II requirement.

PPW offers courses in:

communication for business professionals

scientific and technical communication

persuasive writing

desktop publishing, web design

workplace issues (e.g., gender, diversity, ethics, business cultures) writing within specific communities of discourse (e.g., law and journalism)

Giving Students Real-World Experience

PPW also offers students opportunities to do professional work with real-world rewards and consequences through the University Partners Program. University Partners teams up PPW classes with businesses, civic or charitable organizations, and campus units which act as clients, contracting students to perform writing and/or research projects.

Using Technology

PPW courses provide students with multiple opportunities to work closely with current desktop publishing and professional software. Many of our PPW courses require students to regularly use document-design software (such as Pagemaker), image composing software (such as Image Composer) and presentation software (such as PowerPoint) to develop projects. Students may also take professional and technical communication courses in the English Department's Professional Writing Classroom. These courses accustom students to working in an almost entirely paperless environment and allow them to develop expertise with common software packages.

PPW courses often require students to design web pages for themselves and, through the University Partners Program, for campus units and area businesses. Students in these classes use the English Multimedia Center's multimedia authoring facilities to gain expertise in web page design and layout using a variety such tools as FrontPage, PhotoShop and various HTML editors.