This mixed genre assignment is used by Dr. Megan Little in her English 304 class, From Academic to Professional Writing, to teach students how to “popularize” technical, academic research for more general audiences. While this is an English class, its students are usually not English majors. This assignment asks students to locate academic journal articles in an area of study that interests them, then emulate popularization genres to learn this kind of writing.

For the end product, students deliver several popularization writings via a blog that is linked to in a formal business memo/cover letter. The memo responds to a scenario in which they have a contact in an organization where they want to work or get an internship, and present their blog as a way to get their “foot in the door.”