The primary goal of the Writing
Center is to guide
students in developing their writing skills in rhetoric, organization, style,
and structure, through one-on-one interactive conferences with faculty consultants.
We believe that writing is a recursive activity involving
several steps that include generating ideas, organizing thoughts, developing a
first draft, rewriting, and editing.
The work of writing consultants is to teach students how to
conceptualize and develop an idea, how to write persuasively and with sophistication,
and how to correct their own errors at the level demanded by college courses. We don't edit or copy-edit the work of students, but instead, we work with students so that they can learn to edit for themselves.
The work of learning to write
better requires the absorption of knowledge and then the practice of what has
been learned. For this reason, conferences are
limited to 25 minutes. Students are encouraged to revise their papers after a session and to sign up for
additional sessions on subsequent days.
Because the idea of the writing conference is a collaboration between the writer and the consultant, students should be active participants in the session, and should learn to identify what types of writing issues with which they need help. Consultants will help the student to identify areas of the paper that need work. Together they move forward towards the improvement of the
student's writing within the context of a specific written assignment. The writing
conference works through the interaction of both student and consultant.
