Home / Erin Hunt

PROFESSIONAL BIOGRAPHY

Erin is a Senior Educational Consultant at Thinktown Education, an NYC-based e-learning company, where she works one-on-one with international students to write and revise their college application essays, resumes, and extracurricular activities lists, as well as high school and college writing assignments. She frequently acts as an academic advisor, researching and directing students to helpful college and degree program resources. Many of Erin's students have gained acceptance into top universities and summer programs in the U.S.

As a Teaching Assistant for The Graide Network, Erin grades and provides feedback on students' writing assignments, including AP English and History mock exams. She has worked with over 30 veteran teachers at charter, private, parochial and public middle and high schools and colleges, across the U.S., fine-tuning students' writing skills and preparing them for AP exams.

To earn her MSPW at NYU, and to graduate with a 3.8 GPA, Erin wrote an 80-page master's thesis: "How Animal Welfare Organizations Use Social Media to Achieve Their Missions and Goals." Erin interviewed animal shelter directors across the U.S. to better understand this phenomenon, providing shelters with recommendations on how to bolster the power of social media to meet their missions and goals.

Erin also partnered with a Mid-Michigan non-profit animal welfare organization to write a comprehensive Fire Preparedness Plan, critical to the shelter’s and city fire department’s response in the event of a smoke- or fire-related incident and/or evacuation. This plan helps protect the lives of over 100 animals, who are present in the shelter at any given time.

Additionally, Erin's attention to detail, project management, research skills, and passionate commitment to delivering expertly written content have proven invaluable to her professional success. Erin is excited to expand her clientele for professional writing and editing services for master's theses, books, and other projects in the future and is open to job opportunities in writing, editing, educational consulting, and related careers.

MASTER'S THESIS PROJECT

This master's thesis is an 80-page research-based project using a phenomenological study (interviews) to understand how animal welfare organizations in the United States use social media to fulfill organizational missions and goals. Additionally, this thesis project makes recommendations for ways animal welfare organizations can better leverage social media to save more animals' lives. These recommendations can be applied to any nonprofit organization looking to leverage social media. This thesis project demonstrates Erin's strong academic research, writing, editing, and formatting skills.

15th February 2018

TECHNICAL WRITING: Website Design Project Proposal

This website design proposal (and corresponding website prototype) is a response to a Request for Proposal. This sample justifies the development of a new, unique health-based website for a specific target audience. This piece uses skillful layout and design for a strong cohesive web design proposal and its subsequent website. It demonstrates competency in assessing user needs through user research and testing, careful analysis of findings, and their skillful application for effective web design. The proposal features templates, wireframes, sitemaps, flow charts, diagrams and page elements, all critical in the design of Web elements used to organize large data sets. The accompanying website prototype applies techniques and practices for designing an information architecture and user experience. The unique functional medicine website, Happy Gut, matches innovative methods for information presentation with the specific needs of the target audience. Happy Gut is featured on the NYU School of Professional Studies College for Applied Liberal Arts Blog, recognized as a top web design project.

TECHNICAL WRITING: Fire Preparedness Plan for Nonprofit Animal Shelter

The actions taken in the initial stages of an emergency are critical, and every organization, whether business or nonprofit, needs to be prepared. This fire preparedness plan, for a Michigan-based animal control and care center, leverages critical professional writing skills in a professional freelance experience. The fire plan is the result of four months of on-site tours and interviews with the shelter director to assess needs, as well as follow-up communication via text messages, emails, and scheduled meetings to report progress. The fire preparedness plan provided the shelter with a much-needed document outlining clear protocols and procedures to help better serve and protect their staff, over one hundred resident animals, and property, as well as provide the city fire department with an abbreviated, supplemental plan to facilitate timely evacuation in the event of smoke or fire. The fire plan was adopted by the Saginaw County Fire Marshal in Spring 2018 to be used at the shelter.

SCIENCE WRITING: "Man’s Best Friend Solves Human Neuropsychiatric Diseases"

This sample summarizes a groundbreaking biotechnology report/news announcement from a major science publication. It demonstrates proficiency in writing clearly and concisely about complex scientific concepts for the general lay reader, a hallmark of science writing. It conveys a clear point through simple, reader-friendly language void of fluff and wordiness.

ENVIRONMENTAL WRITING: "Historic Low Levels of Sea Ice Threaten Polar Bears In Arctic Ecosystem"

Never has science writing been more important to society’s understanding of complex scientific and environmental issues, as they continue to emerge and play an important role in everyday life. It increasingly becomes more important that the public become scientifically literate. This sample employs extensive research about complex scientific and social-scientific literature to report on and develop an engaging, informative story using an appropriate voice for a general audience. It presents complex and difficult science and findings from reliable, authoritative sources using clear, concise, cohesive language that the lay reader can understand – a primary goal of science writing. This piece demonstrates skillful writing to develop a solid, effective, persuasive narrative about a broader hot-button environmental issue (global climate warming) while encapsulating a sub-story about the mitigating effects on the environment, humans, and non-human species.

HEALTH WRITING (Fact Sheet): "Life Expectancy in the U.S."

Health sciences are constantly advancing, and there is an enormous amount of information to transmit clearly and accurately to both patients and health professionals critical to reaching and providing the public with optimal healthcare. This technical health document (fact sheet) conveys key information about life expectancy in the U.S. to nurses and their patients. It demonstrates effective health writing and document design skills required to simplify complex health information to workers in the allied health professions and to the public.

HEALTH WRITING (Review Document): "Increasing Life Expectancy in the U.S.: Physical Health Tactics to Improve Health and Prevent Chronic Disease"

A review document is the backbone of most writing for the health professions. It involves conducting intensive medical research and assessing medical literature. This sample is a large review document, a position paper, that presents a problem and an opinion about an important health issue – life expectancy in the U.S. This piece uses facts from reliable, authoritative sources to build a foundation for an in-depth, solid argument. It then makes suggestions on how Americans can resolve the issue by integrating specific physical health tactics into their daily lives to improve health and prevent chronic disease.

WRITING FOR DIGITAL MEDIA (Position Statement): "Michigan Governor Rick Snyder On Gun Control" Position Statement

This sample demonstrates skillful application of principles in digital media production, specifically digital media writing in political campaigns. This piece serves to enhance Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s official website with an important policy issue (gun control) presently absent from his list of policies and issues. It presents Governor Snyder’s stance on this controversial issue while mimicking his voice, tone, and rhetoric for editorial consistency, fitting the website seamlessly as if written by the original content writer(s) or Governor Snyder himself.

WRITING FOR DIGITAL MEDIA (Blog): "Email Really Is For Lovers, Let Me Count the Ways"

This sample demonstrates aptitude and mastery of methods to strengthen and perfect specific forms of digital writing, particularly creative blog content. This blog expands on an article by a senior associate editor at The Atlantic about an interesting study exploring the impact of media on psychophysiological responses and emotional content in utilitarian and romantic communication. Erin shares her personal experiences using email as a communication tool whilst in a romantic relationship. By reflecting on and sharing her story, Erin effectively uses rhetoric to persuade her audience that email really is a worthwhile, valuable medium in intimate relationships.

Erin Hunt