Dear MSU Colleagues:

This letter is a reminder that the Department of English has opened a new Writing Center in room 200 of Lee Hall. At no expense, your students may use our new computers to access grammar and usage resources, as well as talk face-to-face with our staff about their writing projects. Please encourage students at all skill levels to visit the Writing Center at any stage in the writing process.

Please email Sarah Sneed to set up a five-minute presentation with your classes regarding the ways the Writing Center staff can help them to become better writers and work on their writing assignments.

Hours: M-Th 8am-4pm, Fri 8am-2pm
http://www.writingcenter.msstate.edu/

The Writing Center is staffed by12 students earning their MA in English. Half have completed training in the theories and practices of effective one-on-one teaching. The other six are concurrently receiving training and working in the Writing Center.

What can our Writing Center and our staff do for your students?
• If your students need to begin drafting a paper, they may do so on our machines; they can also count on our writing consultants to answer questions about using the equipment.
• If your students need help in starting that draft, our writing consultants will help them to think about the requirements of the assignment, about the audience and purpose, about what they know and need to find out.
• With these starting points addressed, the writing consultant can also help your students to craft a thesis, shape an organization, and discover appropriate evidence to support that thesis.
• When your students have completed that first draft, our writing consultants will then guide them in revising their papers, helping them to decide whether or not they have supported their claims and achieved their purposes.
• In addition to helping your students with these “big-picture” issues—meeting the requirements of the assignment, drafting, revising—our writing consultants will help your students solve problems with correctness: sentence structure, punctuation, verb forms, pronoun usage.

What will our Writing Center staff not do for your students?
• Writing Consultants will not think for your students. Instead, they are trained to ask questions that will start and sustain your students’ thinking.
• Writing Consultants will not edit or correct your students’ papers. Again, writing consultants are trained to help students to identify errors and to practice strategies for correction and revision, but your students will retain responsibility for their own work.

Appointments: Students do not need to be referred in order to use the Writing Center. Please do encourage your students to visit the Writing Center once per writing assignment, and to bring a copy of the directions for that assignment with them. Appointments are currently made on a drop-in only basis. There are typically four consultants staffing the Writing Center per hour. Appointments begin on the hour and half-hour. First-time users will be required to sign a contract specifying the policies governing each session with a writing consultant. We keep a record of each student who visits the Writing Center, indicating who the student worked with and what was covered during the session. Students who visit the Writing Center are encouraged to fill out an evaluation form after each session. In the future, an electronic database will track drop-in appointments and schedule appointments for later dates.

The Writing Center serves all MSU writers—freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors, graduate students—anyone who wants to talk about writing. Come see us!

Sarah Sneed, Interim Director
The Writing Center
Department of English