July 2004 Meeting -- Your Writing Samples Portfolio

June 2004

July 2004 Meeting -- Your Writing Samples Portfolio: A Personal Sales Kit & Career History
Presented by Lu Rehling

The July meeting is on Wednesday, July 21, 2004, from 6:00 pm to 8:30 pm at the London Wine Bar in San Francisco's financial district. For details about the meeeting location and instructions for purchasing tickets, see http://www.stc-sf.org/stc-meetings.htm.

About the Presentation

A writing samples portfolio is a critical tool for career advancement. No technical communicator's resume and/or cover letter is complete without promising that the job (or promotion) seeker has a portfolio of writing samples available. Which means that every technical communicator needs to decide what to include, how to pull everything together, how to present the resulting portfolio well, and how to efficiently and effectively update it over time.

Together, we'll walk through a step-by-step process for doing all of that, plus address any of your questions about developing and using a portfolio. Please feel free to bring your own portfolio along and to share your ideas about portfolios as well.

About the Speaker

Lu Rehling is the Director and Advisor for the Technical and Professional Writing (TPW) Program at San Francisco State University. She has over fifteen years of professional experience as a writer, editor, trainer, manager, and consultant. Recently, during a two-year leave of absence from TPW, she was Manager of Technical Publications at AvantGo, Inc. (since aquired by Sybase, Inc.) She has held staff positions with Film Counselors Inc. and Applied Digital Data Systems in New York; The Quaker Oats Company and Sealy, Inc. in Chicago; and Microwest Terminal Systems Inc. and Shipley Associates in Utah. She also has done freelance work as an independent contractor and consultant.

Lu has prior professional experience in higher education, beginning with teaching as a graduate student at The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, (where she earned her Ph.D., A.M., and A.B. degrees in English Language and Literature). Before joining San Francisco State University, she held teaching appointments at The University of Utah, Salt Lake Community College, and Westminster College.