A Reflection of Beyond the Logo Thus Far
- Kayla Greig
- Jul 2
- 6 min read
Rough Drafts vs Final Drafts
I have revised and expanded on all three of my projects that we were assigned over the course of the summer section. Project 1 was the analytic narrative, and there were seven primary revisions I made. Before doing anything else, I re-read and edited my rough draft for content clarity, grammar, and flow.
Project 1 was already in good shape, so this was a pretty simple task. I then took a peek at the summary comments from my peers and professor and started making changes accordingly. Being guided by in-text comments from our professor, I changed the title from “Project 1: Analytic Narrative” to one that was more descriptive and indicative of the content to follow: “Writing in Marketing Through Product Development.” The summary comment from our professor was: “The main suggestions I have are to give us more examples and then to explain why those writing elements are valued in your discipline.” I gave more specific writing examples and further explained any examples I had already written about. Previously, I had simply mentioned improving survey questions, but in my final draft, I gave an example of my first go, biased version of a survey, and then my second, face-based question after improvement. After I had talked about using academic journals to aid in my writing, I explained why the marketing field values this genre: “Marketing values academic and professional journals because professionals often need to distill complex research, technical data, and evidence-based findings into accessible insights that help businesses make strategic decisions quickly and confidently.” My peer gave me a suggestion to summarize the different genres I utilized at the beginning of my paper to serve as a roadmap of the content to follow, and I took his advice.
Project 2 was the How-To Guide for Writing a Genre in Your Discipline; I chose to write my guide on marketing resumes. The primary comment from my professor on my rough draft was to make my paper more marketing-specific since my writing was leaning towards general resumes. I incorporated this advice throughout my project. I added a paragraph in my cover letter addressing what a marketing resume was, listed specific skills valued for various marketing positions (specifically, paid media vs brand/social marketing role), and listed specific marketing software and industry skills people could highlight in their Skills & Qualifications sections. I pulled from my sample sources to showcase these changes. I then worked through addressing my professor’s in-text comments. I explained what I learned from my secondary sources and gave specific strategies of how to best tailor resumes. I explained that I learned to be specific and not general, use active verbs, and quantify/qualify oneself from Harvard, and learned tailoring methods from Purdue.
A sentence I wrote about tailoring was: “A great way to find out how you should tailor your resume is by looking at the job description for a role and the company's values.” My professor also recommended I move tailoring to an earlier step in the resume process, so I did, I moved it to step 2, so the sequential order became: organization, tailor, bullet points, and format. When showing my examples, I also showed the entire document and highlighted portions rather than including excerpts, which allowed for the bigger picture to be seen with the surrounding context. I also presented one sample source at a time and then wrote my analysis on one source before moving on to the next, so that readers could track more easily.
Project 3 was the Academic Style Guide. For this project, I revised my rough draft in six primary ways. A large portion of my editing was reviewing grammar, flow, and readability to create a more polished version. I did this editing from what I felt personally needed to be changed to reduce an awkward reading experience. The comments I received from my peers and professor all overlapped with one another in terms of advice; this really solidified for me the importance of the recommendations. There were two main comments; the first was to better connect images to my writing. I changed some of the images to make them more relevant and removed others that did not serve a clear purpose. For instance, in the Design & Visual Communication section I had my sample source of a campaign case study, but I realized that this better fit into Form, Format & Organization since that section directly mentioned case studies. I changed the visual in the Design & Visual Communication to a visually striking Nike advertisement.
Another reason for this was the comment from my peer suggesting an additional sample source. The second main suggestion was related to citing. I only had basic links in my reference list, partial image credits, and no in-text citations for my background sources. I added those throughout my writing. One sentence I added was: “This flexibility is especially important because effective business writing changes based on the needs, expectations, and level of formality required by each audience (UNC Writing Center, n.d.).” One peer commented, “It was just that for your shorter sections where you just list out things, you might want to expand on those sections a little more.” Because of this comment, I was intentional in where I inserted discussing my background sources and adding additional samples. One final comment was from my professor, and he said, “Work on integrating more multimodal elements. For a style guide, you might add: hyperlinks, embedded videos/podcasts, pictures, screenshots of sample texts, pics of academic journals, etc.” I ended up adding a video, a podcast, and a screenshot of one of my sample sources (creative brief).
My Portfolio
One of the greatest things about my portfolio is that someone can use it to learn and guide their journey in marketing writing! It can also be used as a practical reference for understanding marketing writing. The three main projects help to explain the theory, conventions, and expectations informing marketing communication, while the blogs are great sources that showcase how those ideas play out. A reader could move themselves through my portfolio to see how this kind of business writing is flexible and changes across genres, audiences, and objectives. By the end, my hope is that my reader understands that successful marketing writing is intentional, strategic, audience-centered, and adaptable. The marks of a successful writer in marketing has five main characteristics:
Understands their audience deeply and adjusts messaging accordingly
Communicates complex ideas in ways that feel clear, concise, and engaging
Balances creativity with strategy
Integrates storytelling, data, and cultural awareness to create meaningful communication
Adaptable across different formats - from long-form analysis to short-form digital content
The blogs and projects I created should show people that marketing is more complex than simply “creating ads.” There are many genres, like case studies, campaign briefs, blogs, and social content, all of which have their own conventions. My resources reveal how much research, audience analysis, and intentional language choices go into effective marketing communication. If a general, non-marketing audience were reading my blog, they would learn to see marketing more critically and recognize the strategy that goes behind the campaigns they encounter every day. They will see how marketing today sells identity, values, and belonging, not just products. They may walk away with a deeper appreciation for how marketing shapes modern culture, often in ways that people do not directly observe.
Learning Journey
General Marketing Field
Throughout this summer, I learned that marketing writing is not just about being creative or persuasive, but it is crucial to write with a clear business goal at the top of mind. I learned that different marketing genres all have different conventions, tone, structure, and purpose through my blog assignments, as I learned to write in a public-facing, conversational, and engaging voice rather than pure academic writing.
I also learned that strong marketing writing balances data and storytelling and that the balance is important because data builds credibility, while narrative creates an emotional connection between a brand and its consumer. Blog 4, blog 6, and blog 7 helped me come to this conclusion as I analyzed campaigns that made me notice how brands use culture, emotion, and community within marketing. My style guide showed me that strong writing in marketing still follows rules, even when it feels more casual or creative, and that your audience matters constantly as communications change vastly between internal and external audiences. Throughout writing in this course, I learned that good marketers are not just writers, but they are translators between brands and people, and that effective writing often feels simple on the surface, but every word behind marketing communication is chosen strategically.
My Growth as a Reader & Writer
Throughout the creation of my portfolio, I learned about myself as a reader; I am a very analytical reader because I look beyond surface-level content and pay attention to broader writing conventions. I, of course, learned about myself as a writer. As a writer, I tend to care a lot about clarity, flow, and word choice and tend to enjoy writing the most when I connect creativity with strategy. I also noticed that I can sometimes push myself towards perfection, but this portfolio helped me to see writing as a process of growth and experimentation. This learning process will be helpful for me in the future as a professional writer as I have developed stronger research skills, learned conventions around professional writing, and know how to balance quality and creativity with quantifiable metrics.
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