By visiting this section, you show your engagement with and commitment to your students' writing success. Please know that our assistance is not intended to replace classroom instruction of an assignment and will neither undermine your authority nor the university's policy on academic integrity. The latter prevents us from functioning as merely a "quick-fix" editing and proofreading service, so please clarify this to your students. Thank you for your interest.
The primary purpose of the Writing Center is to enhance and reinforce the campus emphasis on writing instruction by working individually with students who are planning, writing, revising and editing papers. Our consultants assist students in the following ways:
Any student, staff or faculty member associated with ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵ University is welcome to use the Writing Center for any writing project. However, please note that our consultants cannot assist with writing in any language besides English.
The Writing Center staff includes writing consultants who are undergraduate and graduate students in English and other disciplines. The director of the writing center as of January 2023 is Casey L. Ford, M.F.A., who was previously a full-time instructor for LU English and Modern Languages. Read more
Please do not. This creates a traffic jam in the Writing Center and may prevent other students who are serious about improving their writing from getting the help they seek on their own. We know from experience that when students get a blanket requirement of this kind, most of them wait until the last minute and then come in simply to get us to verify their presence; they don't plan to make any substantial changes in their papers.
A student may choose to inform you by requesting the Writing Center send a confirmation of the visit via email. Unfortunately, students occasionally tell their professors they went to the Writing Center when they did not. If you suspect that is the case, email Casey Ford or call her at (409) 880-8587.
We prefer you suggest they visit the Writing Center to learn how to recognize and correct their errors. Our consultants will not edit or proofread for students, but are happy to guide students through the process.
Yes, we are happy to contribute to their process of learning to write in English, but both they and you should understand that we will not be rewriting their sentences or correcting every error in their writing. Writing in another language is a difficult and sometimes frustrating process that takes time, practice and persistence. Those who are willing, as many are, to come in repeatedly and to work hard between sessions to apply what they learn in the Writing Center will gradually make progress, but please do not expect instant results.
Yes. If students keep track of all the necessary bibliographical information, and if they know which system of documentation they are supposed to use, we will help them find information about citing particular sources.
As we are reading papers with students, we also try to be alert to sudden shifts in style that can indicate plagiarism, and we provide instruction in the proper use and crediting of sources, including the difference between legitimate paraphrase and plagiarism. However, we cannot guarantee that we will always notice violations or that students will correct them.
If you would like to arrange a style workshop for your class, pleaseemail Casey Ford or call her at (409) 880-8587 for more information.
No, we do not work on student papers in their absence. During a session, both the student and the consultant will be asking and answering questions – reading the paper together and engaging in a dialogue about what is working and what is not, looking for solutions to problems and exploring different options together. Please refer to the "What to Expect" section of the home page for more information about what occurs in a Writing Center conference.
We are happy to help with group papers if all the group members come in with the same general concern, such as idea development, grammar and punctuation or documentation. Delegating one group member to bring the paper to the center defeats our purpose of trying to work with students to improve their writing.
Not every Writing Center session is an unqualified success. We are often frustrated at not being able to help students as much as we would like to. Students at many different levels of writing ability and experience come to the Writing Center at different stages of their writing processes. Frequently, we see papers with more writing problems than we can address in a single session. As much as we might like to "take over" a student's paper and "fix" it, that is not our mission. It would neither help the student to improve as a writer, nor be consistent with the Academic Integrity Policy.
We are often aware that even if students use what they learn to improve their writing, some issues will still remain. In those cases, we encourage students to come back for additional sessions.
Under no circumstances will a Writing Center consultant evaluate a student's paper. Students are informed that they are ultimately responsible for the decisions made about their papers, and only their instructors have the authority to evaluate them.
When they ask us to evaluate their writing, we try instead to have them identify strengths and weakness in relation to their intentions or to the criteria given as part of the assignment.