@Cullen18Cullen
I’m co-owner of a small accounting firm and payroll service company.

I was trained as a journalist in the military and finished my degree with a concentration in communications.

Every day requires me to draw on those skills of effective, clear, concise, professional communication. To retain and gain business, my emails and letters to clients need to reflect professionalism.

Letters to federal & state agencies require a skill with writing that reflects our knowledge as well.

@Cullen18Cullen As a former teacher and office manager, I used writing all the time for various tasks, from writing with students to show them examples of different kinds of writing to typing letters to the Department of Revenue and other officials.

Now that I am retired from those jobs, I still use writing in my small businesses and volunteer work.

@Cullen18Cullen Copywriter here! So that's kind of cheating. But in my last FT job as a moderation manager at a social network your students probably use:

-Working at an international company, you need to be able to express yourself clearly to people who don't speak the same first language as you.
-Managing a team, you need to make your communications clear or people won't read, understand, or follow them. Spending the extra five minutes on that email can save hours down the line.

@Cullen18Cullen

Currently I'm a novelist. I need to be able to write a novel, but I also need to be able to write about being a writer who publishes his own work.

Before that I was an educator specializing in teaching online. I needed to help teachers learn how to use the tools, why they might want to, and how to tell when something wasn't working. I needed to be able to write clearly and succinctly.

And I had to try to explain what I've done for years to somebody who's just starting.

@Cullen18Cullen Happy to!

I’m an author.

Does that count? 🙂

@Cullen18Cullen

Software Engineer here. Writing good documentation really helps other engineers learn quickly the complex systems we deal with.

@Cullen18Cullen
I'm executive director of a wildlife conservation organization, and have also worked in the arts.

My creative writing degree prepared me for everything I have done in life--between the communication skills I developed, the creativity that was nurtured, and the critical thinking skills I learned in lit classes & writing workshops.

My work involves writing advocacy materials, bear safety info, grants, outreach materials, commenting on policy proposals, email & social media.

@Cullen18Cullen that’s cool. I own a media company and use writing in copy for ads.

I used to work in tech, and I found that writing well was more important than any other skill. If you’re a hiring manager looking at 2 resumes, you’re likely going to pick the better written one. Same goes with applications, grants, proposals, and really any endeavor that requires capturing someone’s attention.

Writing is your opportunity to make an impression and to review and edit it first.

@Cullen18Cullen

As a nurse, my notes had to be clear, concise, and thorough. Especially if things gad gone pear--shaped.

Here, in writing image descriptions, I fall back on freshman English and the descriptive paragraph.

My favorite comma use story is from high school.

You smell putrid, little dog.
You smell, putrid little dog.

Best

@Cullen18Cullen

I'm physicist by education, working in more applied type of research (crisis management and climate change) for the last 15+ years. To get somewhere in research, one has to write a whole lot.

- scientific papers, project proposals, project deliverables, white papers, best practice papers, policy support papers, PR...

Researchers that know how to formulate their ideas as compelling narrative are more likely to get their papers published and project proposals funded.

@Cullen18Cullen I assist software developers in securing the products they build. I write to clearly communicate risks my colleagues face and actions they can take to address those risks.

I write carefully because my recommendations often have two audiences - technicians who need to act, and leaders who need to make decisions (sometimes that's the same person, reading the report twice with different goals.)