A professional writing course can help liberal arts students draw upon their knowledge of language, psychology, sociology, history, and humanities to develop marketable expertise. A west coast college's advanced writing class links liberal arts education and professional training in composition. Rather than emphasizing form, the course focuses on rhetorical contexts: (1) informing, (2) requesting, (3) evaluating, (4) complaining, (5) recommending, (6) rejecting or denying, and (7) tracing progress. Using these contexts, it presents individual cases to students, who then respond appropriately in writing. The situations described in the cases give the students a sense of the audience and the particulars of the message. Most important to this method of teaching professional writing are the rhetorical strategies the students learn and subsequently apply to new contexts. The firm rhetorical base of the professional writing course makes it more than technical writing instruction and therefore an appealing elective for liberal arts students. (A sample case is included.) (HTH)