The following is an announcement I wrote for my students while I was attempting to get them to re-frame the major course assignment as a paid writing gig. The assignment in question was to write a profile of a local small business with the emphasis on the impact that said business had on its community. The announcement was entitled “Finding your Question”.
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Hey everyone,
I know I said I usually don’t do this, but Here’s an excerpt from this week’s Top Hat reading that stuck with me:
“A useful way to get started is by examining your own context: You are a student in a college class tasked with writing something. In that context are two helpful factors to consider: you and college. Both are going somewhere: the academy toward building further knowledge about the world, and you toward fulfilling your personal goals and interests. The best topics… tend to lie at the intersection of these two.”
That last part hit home. As someone with a business mindset, I often think in terms of impact and sustainability—whether that’s financial, social, or academic. So when I approach a project like this, I’m not just thinking about checking boxes. I’m asking:
How can I make money? How can I contributes to group knowledge? and How do I write something that matters?
or at very least, show that i’ve got something to say?
For you, this might look different—but the strategy is the same:
Find the overlap between what you care about and what the academy is interested in.
Here are a few things I personally kept in mind:
- Writers do make money.
- Businesses need good writing to thrive—think PR, marketing, even storytelling.
- Subjects like psychology, sociology, and marketing can all play a role in this project.
In my case, I’m always thinking about social order—what keeps communities functioning well, and how do we minimize exploitation? So I talked to someone running a new business in the neighborhood. No fancy pitch, no huge plan. Just a conversation. I recorded it, listened to it, wrote about it. Then I did it again. That’s it.
You can do this too.
Find something you’re curious about. Ask questions. Start writing.
You’ve got this.
—Karl
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