Public Relations: Why Not

     What is an English Major? What can a person do with an English Major, besides teaching, or going to graduate school? Honestly if you have the determination you can do anything with it. Some of the great skills and qualities that an English major has, or that anyone can have, is the knowledge of writing, using words to create a voice that can be understood by everyone and, having a way of putting language together which can be passed to others. Then there is the knowledge of knowing how to read, and how to read fast, which is an amazing skill that is gained through years of studying literature, but there is also knowing the skill of knowing how to skim read, or just being able to look at a piece of writing and picking out the parts that are the most important. These are very useful skills in any kind of business field and any business owner would love to have someone with these skills on their team. Also being able to multi task which is something that is picked up along the way through many long years of studying, having this type of particular skill at hand is very useful in any type of business field. Lastly just being willing to teach yourself a new skill when it’s required, and not turning anything down by just being willing to jump in and take a chance to see what is out there. All of these skills, and qualities, are great aspects to the business world no matter what your major is, if you have any of these skills you can go anywhere you want in the world.

Broadcast Writing

News writers write, edit, and sometimes do on-air reporting of news stories. They should be naturally curious, like research and writing, and have the ability to simplify and produce reports for newscasts and news and information programs as well as the Internet. These people are responsible for investigating, gathering information, and reporting news and current affairs.

Beth Hyams, editor, newscaster and radio host at Oregon Public Broadcasting, writes and edits her own copy. She studied English and American lit in college but never planned on working as a journalist. “I wrote all through high school and college. I thought I would be a fiction writer. I had always been a writer, but I didn’t know I was going to be a journalist,” she says. Beth has been working at OPB for 17 years, and in radio for 25. She says within that time nothing has changed for writing; the basics are the same, but the technology has advanced significantly.

Shakespeare and the Brand: Why English Majors Understand the Psychology of Branding

Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven is thick inlaid with patens of bright gold. There’s not the smallest orb which though beholdst, but in his motion like an angel sings, still choiring to the young-eyed cherubims; such harmony is in immortal souls, but whilst this muddy vesture of decay doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

—Lorenzo, The Merchant of Venice, Act V, Scene 1 

T

he way you say something makes a difference in how your message is received. Consider Lorenzo’s words in The Merchant of Venice. He could have said, “Hey Jessie, the stars are hella bright. Check out Mars moving backward.” (That is, if Mars was currently in retrograde motion.) But instead he calls them “patens of bright gold,” and threw in music and angels for good measure. Much classier. I’m sure his words gave Jessica pause, and made her think about just what kind of a man she had lying beside her on that grassy knoll. Or perhaps she went straight on to swooning, with no time for thought. Regardless of which effect his words had, the fact remains that the way Lorenzo tells her to look at the stars influences how Jessica hears him. 

So, what does Shakespeare have to do with the psychology of branding, you ask? All this beautiful speech has got me confused. Relax, I reply. I’m going to explain.

Music Journalism: Why We Write

My friend Sandra became obsessed with a rising starlet by the name of La Roux last year. She made a cute little fan page on Tumblr in which she aggregated every interview, review, what have you on La Roux and updated it daily. Every picture of La Roux, each single as it was released, and even contests for the fans – it was a very solid, thorough and professional effort. An email soon showed up in her inbox from La Roux’s manager, offering Sandra the position of “official social networker.”

Of course, she readily accepted the offer and her website was given official endorsement. She was also charged with making and maintaining an official Twitter account for the singer. A box full of stickers, posters and even an autographed CD and too-large T-shirt soon arrived at her door. Sandra even got to hang out with her backstage after she played a concert in Seattle – an event she described as “feeling very uncute next to her and really awkward as I didn’t have anything to say beyond ‘I liked your show.” Sandra still updates the social networking sites frequently, but she’s never gotten paid for it and is under the obligation to devote a lot of time.

This seems to be the common first step in making moves towards being a music journalist – cutting your teeth anyway you can to get exposed and validated for your efforts.

Editing in the Publishing Industry

In a world of increasing technology and screen-oriented media, the publishing industry may seem in peril. Publishing houses produce books in hard copy: bound pages with covers and margins, illustrations and carefully considered fonts, of a certain size and weight with a tangible nature important to English majors and other literary connoisseurs. The emergence of ebooks from Amazon and Apple spurs some of us into a preservationist tirade. We like to dog-ear our pages, scribble our notes in the free spaces and collect more than one edition of a favorite text. Or for those who prefer their library pristine, carefully preserved and leather-bound works may be a bookshelf staple considered an essential element of one’s personality. It’s tempting to see the world in black and white: with the dawn of ebooks, real books are doomed. In fact the issue presents daunting complexities, but nothing indicates that the publishing industry and the iPad or Kindle cannot find a way to live in harmony.

Careers in publishing persist. Authors are getting published; editors have plenty of submissions to consider and the resources to produce them.

The Joy of Self-Publishing by Colin Cowden

Most people will say that they have a great idea for a book and that someday they will get around to writing it. Most don't. But for the few who do manage to find the time and get all their words down on paper (or .doc file format) there comes the daunting tasking of finding an agent who will then work out a deal with a publisher to get the book on the market and to the hands of the readers.

But what if no publisher wants to publish the book that the author worked so hard on? Or worse, what if they can't even get an agent? Was their toiling over a computer screen all for naught? It can be a depressing idea for a writer to think that their work may never see the light of day. However, with modern advances in technology, it is becoming easier for writers to side-step the publishing business and get their work in to the hands of readers without the approval of a big publisher.

Welcome to the world of self-publishing.