The Writing Center at UNCG
Faculty Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Why does UNCG have a Writing Center?
Q: Who can use the Writing Center?
Q: Who is on the staff?
Q: What happens during a Writing Center conference?
Q: Can I require my whole class to bring their papers to the Writing Center?
Q: How can I encourage my students to use the Writing Center?
Q: Will I know if one of my students uses the Writing Center?
Q: Many of my students are terrible proofreaders. Can I suggest that they bring their papers to the Writing Center for proofreading?
Q: Can the Writing Center help students who are struggling because English is not their native language?
Q: Will the Writing Center help students to document their sources properly?
Q: Can a student drop off a paper and pick it up later?
Q: What about group papers?
Q: I’ve sometimes had students visit the Writing Center and still turn in poorly written papers. How do you explain that?
Q: How do I know that the Writing Center’s evaluation of a student’s paper won’t contradict mine?
Q: Can I arrange to have the Writing Center staff do workshops or presentations on writing in my class?
Q: Why does UNCG have a Writing Center?
A: 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, or revising papers -- helping them to:
- focus on what they want to accomplish in a piece of writing
- read their own drafts with a more discerning and critical eye
- learn strategies for addressing a variety of writing issues
Q: Who can use the Writing Center?
A: Any student, staff, or faculty member associated with UNCG is welcome to use the Writing Center for any writing project. The only exception is that we cannot help with writing done in languages other than English; our staff does not have that expertise.
Q: Who is on the staff?
A: The Writing Center staff includes first-year teaching assistants (MFA and PhD students) from the English department, who also teach English composition courses; additional graduate students from English and other departments; and advanced undergraduates who take a special training course to prepare for their work in the Writing Center.
Sara Littlejohn, from the English department, is the Director of the Writing Center. Jennifer Whitaker, also from the English department, is the Assistant Director. Mary Beth Pennington, a third-year PhD student in English, is our Graduate Assistant Director.
Q: What happens during a Writing Center conference?
A: Although each conference is different, because each writer and each paper are different, you can get a good idea of what happens when students visit the Writing Center by reading the link What to Expect.
Q: Can I require my whole class to bring their papers to the Writing Center?
A: Yes, but be sure to give us a heads-up first! We
appreciate your support of the Writing Center, but 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. 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 that they seek on their own.
If you would like to require your students to bring in their papers, you need
to talk with Sara Littlejohn (256-0483; sjlittle@uncg.edu) first, so that we
can make sure to prepare the staff and she’ll work with you on creating
a schedule for your students to visit the Center. Please see the next question
for suggestions on how to encourage your students to take advantage of our
services.
Q: How can I encourage my students to use the Writing Center?
A: Here are some suggestions:
- Include a description of the Writing Center on your syllabus. (See our home page for the basic information you would need.) Or direct them to our Web site: www.uncg.edu/eng/writingcenter.
- Bring your class to the Writing Center for a 10-minute “get acquainted tour,” or bring one of our staff members to visit your class. Send email to sjlittle@uncg.edu or call 256-0483 to arrange either option.
- Tell students you are impressed when you receive a note from the Writing Center showing that they were motivated and conscientious enough to go in for a visit.
- Get students who have visited the Center to tell others in the class about their experience.
- Tell your class about former students of yours whose writing has improved as a result of their visits to the Writing Center.
- Talk to your students about your own writing process, and about the value of having a trusted reader who gives you honest, constructive feedback. It’s good for students to know that even experienced writers need good readers.
(That’s much better than telling them to go to the Writing Center if they “have any problems”; no one wants to admit to having writing problems!) - While we don’t recommend giving “extra credit points” per se for a Writing Center visit, many instructors build in some type of rewards for extra effort on the part of students (perhaps in the form of a “participation” grade, or a “process” grade). If that is true in your class, you might tell students that visits to the Writing Center demonstrate extra effort on their part, and will be rewarded accordingly.
Q: Will I know if one of my students uses the Writing Center?
A: Yes, if your student wants you to know. We like to send a email notifying
the instructor about the conference, but occasionally students ask us not to.
(And occasionally they
don’t
know their instructor’s name or the course number!)
Unfortunately, students occasionally tell their professors they went to the Writing
Center when in fact they did not. If you suspect that is the case, send email
to sjlittle@uncg.edu or
call Sara Littlejohn at 334-3125. A student who claims that
he
went
to
the
Center
is obviously waiving his right to “confidentiality,” so I will check
our records and tell you whether or not he has been in.
Q: Many of my students are terrible proofreaders. Can I suggest that they bring their papers to the Writing Center for proofreading?
A: No, but you can suggest that they go to the Writing Center to learn how to recognize and correct their errors.
Our consultants won’t do students’ editing or proofreading for them because they won’t learn anything that way, but we are happy to provide instruction in grammar, usage, sentence structure, punctuation, etc., in the context of reading and discussing the writing that students bring to us.
Q: Can the Writing Center help students who are struggling because English is not their native language?
A: Yes, ESL students are some of our best customers. We are happy to contribute what we can 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 a second language (and for many of these students, English is a third or fourth language) is a difficult and sometimes frustrating process; it 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 don’t expect instant results.
Q: Will the Writing Center help students to document their sources properly?
A: Yes. If students keep track of all the necessary bibliographical information, and if they know which system of documentation they are supposed to use (APA, MLA, CMS, CBE, AMA, Turabian, etc.), we will help them look up answers to their questions about citing particular sources. We may not always be able to find the answers, but we will try.
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 both stern warnings and instruction in the proper use and crediting of sources, including the difference between legitimate paraphrase and plagiarism. However, since we are probably not familiar with either the sources a student has used or with his normal writing style (unless he is a regular customer), we can’t guarantee that we will always notice violations.
If you have a class full of students who need instruction in the basics of using and identifying sources properly, you may want to work with the Writing Center director to create and schedule a class presentation. Call Sara Littlejohn at 256-0483 or send email to sjlittle@uncg.edu for more information.
See also our link Citation Styles.
Q: Can a student drop off a paper and pick it up later?
A: No, we don’t work on a student’s paper in his absence. The Writing
Center and Online Writing Center are all about conversation. Both the student
and
his
consultant
will
be asking and answering questions -- reading the paper together and engaging
in
a dialogue about what is working and what isn’t, looking for solutions
to problems, and exploring different options together. (See What
to Expect for more information about what goes on in a Writing Center conference.)
Q: What about group papers?
A: We are happy to help with group papers if all the group members come in to ask and answer questions about the parts they have written, and to learn by correcting errors they might have made. Delegating one group member to bring the paper to the Center defeats our purpose of trying to work with students to improve their writing.
Q: I’ve sometimes had students visit the Writing Center and still turn in poorly written papers. How do you explain that?
A: You’re right. 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 many different stages of their writing process. Many of them are good, strong writers who want to be even better. One visit is enough to help them identify and address the issues that need to be resolved in a paper, and they are able to improve it significantly. But frequently we see papers with more writing problems than we can address in a one-hour session. As much as we might like to “take over” a student’s paper and “fix” it, that is not our mission – and while that might give you a more pleasurable reading experience when you see the paper, it would neither help the student to improve as a writer (which is our ultimate purpose), nor be consistent with the Academic Integrity Policy (which is extremely important to us).
Our objective in each Writing Center conference is to make students feel ready and able to tackle the next step, or the next few steps, in writing or revising the papers they bring to us. That means we have to set priorities and make judgments. We may, for example, show a student how to restructure his paper so that the parts of it fit together more coherently, or how to bolster his argument with more evidence, or how to use and identify his sources properly, or how to correct some persistent errors in usage or punctuation. But we are often aware that even if he uses what he learns to improve the paper in some ways, there will still be other problems remaining. In that case we encourage the student to come back for additional sessions as he is revising –and hope that he has the time and inclination to do that.
If you have concerns or questions about a particular session, or if you want to send information to our staff about your own priorities and expectations for your students’writing, Sara Littlejohn would love to hear from you. (Please send email to sjlittle@uncg.edu or call 256-0483.)
Q: How do I know that the Writing Center’s evaluation of a student’s paper won’t contradict mine?
A: You don’t know that, and neither do we. That’s why Writing Center consultants are trained to avoid evaluating papers. We try to encourage writers by taking an interest in their work and by responding enthusiastically to their ideas and their effort. But we also react honestly as readers – pointing out problems, raising questions, encouraging writers to examine their options. It’s a fine line – trying to be supportive while at the same time helping students to look critically at their own writing. When they ask us (as they often do) to evaluate their writing, we try instead to get them to identify its strengths and weaknesses in relation to their intentions or to the criteria given them as part of the assignment. And we always tell students that we are not in a position to anticipate or explain their instructor’s response to a paper. Our mantra in the Writing Center is that students are responsible for the papers they turn in, and their instructors are responsible for evaluating them.
Q: Can I arrange to have the Writing Center staff do workshops or presentations on writing in my class?
A. The answer to that question is a cautious “Yes.” Our primary purpose is to work individually with students, but with enough notice we are willing to work with instructors to develop targeted workshops/presentations on specific topics that will be helpful to a class (such as avoiding plagiarism, or doing meaningful revision, or using the MLA or APA system of documentation). Call Sara Littlejohn at 256-0483 if you want to pursue this.