Co-ordinator: Emmy Misser, MA, Ext. 3339
E-mail: <emisser@wlu.ca>
Office Location: Room 2C5-ABC, Second Floor, Arts Building
Office Hours: Monday to Thursday, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Web Site: <http://www.wlu.ca/~wwwwc/>

The Writing Centre provides free writing instruction for all Laurier students, both undergraduate and graduate. The purpose of the centre, affiliated with Instructional Development, is to promote and enhance academic writing skills in all faculties of the University.

The Writing Centre program offers individual writing consultations as well as class presentations and workshops for students and faculty. The co-ordinator gives discipline-specific class presentations and workshops and tailors generic writing presentations to suit the needs of each specific course.

Consultations at the Writing Centre are booked in advance, and students bring either previously marked papers or papers in progress for a critical review. The co-ordinator or a student tutor will assess the major strengths and weaknesses of the paper brought in and discuss revision strategies to enhance global concerns such as focus, analytical structure, and argument to help students understand the particular requirements of academic writing. Sentence-level writing problems will also be discussed to teach students how to communicate their thoughts clearly and precisely in agreement with the conventions of written English.

The desired outcome of a consultation at the Writing Centre is to help students understand how to engage in the tasks of academic writing and how to revise and edit their papers to be able to live up to the expected standards. Students are encouraged to conceive of writing as part of the learning process and to commit themselves actively to the long-term goal of writing at a professional level. Handouts and resources on all aspects of writing for the different academic disciplines are available both in hard copies at the centre or electronically on the Web to assist students. The Writing Centre Web site is well developed and connects the user with major academic writing sites in North America.

The Writing Centre is staffed by paid student tutors who are hand-picked among the top Honours English students at Laurier and trained specifically to help their peers become better writers.

Student Life Student Services/Facilities

Official electronic version updated on February 4, 2002

M. Watson, Editor Course Timetable