Get help with academic writing. Contact:
Janique Dennis
Instructor II
Coordinator, The Writing Centre
Room 12
Telephone: 662-2002, Ext. 82522
E-mail: thewritingcentre@sta.uwi.edu
The aims of The Writing Centre are:
- to enhance the critical thinking and written expression skills of students and staff of the University of the West Indies;
- to meet the standards of formal academic expression – precision, clarity, conciseness, correctness, and elegance;
- to develop students’ ability to plan, organise, write and revise academic papers;
- to help students discover the strengths and challenges they face as writers;
- to increase students’ confidence in writing;
- to engage faculty from all disciplines on campus in a dialogue about teaching writing so as to gradually shift classroom practices from purely content-based instruction towards content /rhetoric–based instruction;
- to sensitise the academic community about the benefits of Writing Across the
Curriculum (WAC) programmes, and
- to contribute to higher standards of writing, and of academic achievement, in all faculties of The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine.
Writing coaches DO NOT:
- correct, edit or proofread credit or practice assignments for students
- tell students what to write
- rewrite students’ work
- suggest a grade for students’ work
- teach material from missed classes
- accept drop-off assignments to be proofread
- offer guidance to any student whose paper is due
- address all aspects of writing in one session
- engage in excessive collaboration.
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Writing coaches DO:
- promote The Writing Centre as a non-threatening space where writers at all levels of proficiency feel comfortable to approach a writing coach and, with his or her guidance, find their own solutions to writing challenges
- identify each individual’s writing needs
- assess each individual’s requirements, past writing history, general composing habits, approaches to learning, attitudes to writing, and with this background information, determine with the student how they are to proceed
- provide clients with individualised, collaborative assistance at any stage of the writing process from brainstorming to revision
- give students feedback on an assignment’s overall structure, focus, format, organisation, clarity, thesis statement, topic sentences, etc.
- suggest writing strategies
- emphasise that writing is a process which involves practice, risk-taking and (sometimes extensive) revision
- welcome experimentation, trial runs of ideas, trying, trying and trying again.
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