The Write Voice: Using Professional Writing to Preserve Cultural Heritage

The goal of this capstone was to become familiar with the different voices that public history professionals take on in order to successfully preserve their collections and advocate for community histories. To gain experience with the internally focused informative voice, an orientation manual was written and digitized for the Sinclair College Archives, a local Dayton archive in which student workers, interns, and future archives professionals are frequently trained on the basics of archival processing and arranging materials for public use. For that same institution, a grant opportunity was selected, and a narrative application was written to gain experience using an externally oriented voice as an advocate for public history funding.