For Faculty

How You Can Encourage Students to Use the Writing Center

The Writing Center can help students from all academic levels and all majors, so we welcome you to encourage students to use this free resource. However, based on writing center research and our experience, sending a whole class of students to the writing center is counterproductive.

Individual students need to take responsibility for their own learning, and the decision to seek assistance should be theirs to make. Students who are sent to a writing center by their professors are less likely to engage in productive conversations about their writing—and they often see the writing center as a place of “remediation,” which it is not.

One of the best ways to inform students about our services is to set aside time in one of your classes for a staff member to present a 10-minute orientation about EIU’s Writing Center. The staff member can give your students a brief introduction about the center, provide brochures and handouts, and explain how we can help them become stronger writers.

In addition, feel free to copy and paste the three paragraphs below into your course policy or syllabus:

I encourage you to use EIU’s Writing Center located at 3110 Coleman Hall. This free service provides one-to-one conferences with writing center consultants who can help you with brainstorming, organizing, developing support, and documenting your papers.

The writing center is open to help any student from any major at any stage of his or her writing process, and its system of one-to-one conferences demonstrates value and respect for individual writers, all of whom can benefit from feedback about their works in progress. The center is not a proofreading or editing or remedial service, however. It is a place where you can learn how to become a more thoughtful, independent, and rhetorically effective writer.

To schedule an appointment, you can drop by the center (3110 Coleman Hall) or you can call 581-5929. The writing center is open Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., and 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. On Friday hours of operation are 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Summer hours vary. Sessions last anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour.

What Students Need to Bring to Writing Conferences

• The instructor’s writing assignment or writing prompt
• A printed copy of the paper or a laptop or a flash drive with the work in progress on it
• Questions and ideas

What Students Can Expect in a Writing Conference

• We will offer a stress-free and open environment regardless of the student’s major or class level, at any stage of the writing process
• The sessions will promote thinking about documents from a reader’s perspective
• Consultants will ask questions that will prompt students to think about how to refine and support their ideas
• Consultants will offer advice on how to efficiently and effectively revise and edit their own work

What We Do Not Do in a Writing Conference

• Act as a proofreading service
• Write the paper for them
• Get angry with students
• Edit or “correct” whole papers

Why Students Should Come in Early for Writing Conferences

• If they come in early with their writing assignments and ideas, our consultants can help them understand and analyze writing assignments
• If they come in early, we can help them brainstorm ideas
• If they schedule an appointment early, conferences with writing center consultants can act as a mini-deadlines to keep them on task and motivated
• If they come in early, they can assure themselves spots in the Writing Center’s busy schedule (this is especially important during peak times, such as mid-term and near the end of the semester).

Tim N. Taylor, 2008