Writing

Writing is a social process that can be developed through reflection, guidance, and deliberate practice.

Writing is simultaneously a mode of thinking and teaching. In writing, we develop and establish our identities. As such, we promote the linguistic diversity of writers by supporting the right to free expression as a central tenant of global citizenship.

The Process of Composition: We support students as they engage in various strategies for using writing as a mode of thinking to develop, analyze, and communicate their ideas. We offer descriptive, revision-based feedback on written work and provide strategies for responsibly incorporating feedback into their thinking and writing.

Writing for Academic Audiences in a Variety of Disciplines: We approach all writing as rhetorically situated to help students recognize that disciplinary and generic conventions are predicated on audience expectations. We teach information literacy by helping students gather, evaluate, and effectively incorporate source materials into their work. This includes selecting appropriate sources (backgrounds, exhibits, arguments, methods) and responsibly integrating them into a text via summary, paraphrase, quotation, and contextualization.

Write with us: When people become more experienced at writing, they don’t seek out less feedback; they tend to seek out more. In writing consultations, we offer writers descriptive, revision-based feedback by narrating our experiences reading their texts to help writers identify moments of confusion, boredom, surprise, or curiosity. We ask craft-based questions to get writers thinking about the implications of their rhetorical choices. Often, we’ll collaborate to draft sentences and paragraphs based on our conversations, or together we’ll scratch out, rewrite, and revise existing work to help writers present their ideas with more concision and precision. To make an appointment, please visit WCOnline.