Professional communication

Professional communication encompasses written, oral, and visual communication within a workplace context. This discipline blends together pedagogical principles of rhetoric, technology and software to improve communication in a variety of settings, ranging from technical writing to usability and digital media design.

The field of professional communication is closely related to that of technical communication though professional communication encompasses a wider variety of skills. Professional communicators use strategies, theories, and technologies to more effectively communicate in the business world.

Successful communication skills are critical to a business because all businesses, though to varying degrees, involve the following: writing, reading, editing, speaking, listening, software applications, computer graphics, and internet research. Job candidates with professional communication backgrounds are more likely to bring to the organization sophisticated perspectives on society, culture, science, and technology.

Studying professional communication

The study of professional communication includes:

    * the study of rhetoric which serves as a theoretical basis
    * the study of technical writing which serves as a form of professional communication
    * the study of visual communication which also uses rhetoric as a theoretical basis for
      various aspects of creating visuals 
    * the study of various research methods

Other areas of study include global and cross-cultural communication, marketing and public relations, technical editing, digital literacy, composition theory, video production, corporate communication, and publishing. A professional communication program may cater to a very specialized interest or to several different interests. Professional communication can also be closely tied to organizational communication.

Students who pursue graduate degrees in professional communication research discourse and communicative practices in organized contexts, including business, academic, scientific, technical, and non-profit settings to study how communicative practices shape and are shaped by culture, technology, history, and theories of communication.

What professional communication encompasses is broad, embracing a diversity of rhetorical contexts and situations. Areas of study range from the everyday writing of the workplace to writing pedagogy of the nineteenth century, from the implications of new media on communicative practices to the theory and design of online learning, and from oral presentations to the production of websites.

Colleges and universities around the U.S. with Professional Communication programs include:

    "Rhetoric and Professional Communication". Iowa State University. 
    "Master of Arts in Professional Communication". Clemson University. 
    "Master of Science in Professional Communication". Clark University. 
    "Professional Communication". Lasalle University.  
    "Master of Science in Organizational and Professional Communication". Regis College. 
    "Master of Arts in Professional Communication". Westminster College. 
    "Graduate Certificate in Professional Communication". Howe School of Technology Management.

Organizations

American Communication Association
"IEEE Professional Communication Society".
Society for Technical Communication