Writing for Extension Audiences - Columbia at LPH

Learning Objectives

You cannot become a great writer in just one workshop, but you can make improvements by developing the vocabulary to discuss writing and to develop an awareness of what makes writing strong by reading, discussing, and evaluating writing samples. A major aim of the workshop is to help Agents become more confident in their writing.

The learning goals of this workshop are as follows:

1. Discuss and explain the preliminary stage of writing an article:

• Identify and describe the article’s target audience and what this audience knows/doesn’t know about this topic.
• Define the objective(s) for the article.
• Describe relevant context surrounding the issue (to address audience’s prior knowledge and lay the foundation for citations).

2. Apply effective writing principles to agent’s own writing:

• Identify and practice strategies for organizing information on three levels: the article level, paragraph level, and sentence level.
• Identify and use transitional phrases and words to organize paragraphs and sentences.
• Explain the need for citations and how to cite textual documents and visuals.
• Identify and use basic grammar and style principles.

3. Develop efficient writing practices to use after this workshop:

• Organize and defend a logical outline for the article based on audience, article objectives, and relevant context. The goal of this outline is to practice planning an article and to use as a template for future articles.
• Create a working “audience avatar” to refer to while writing the article for a more concrete sense of the “audience.”
• Develop strategies for overcoming writing obstacles, such as not knowing where to begin, procrastinating, not making time to write, and lacking motivation to write.