The Center for Reading & Writing offers one-on-one, face-to-face tutoring in writing, reading, and study skills. The Center encourages ALL students to drop in or make an appointment. Well-trained writing consultants guide students through the writing process and help them become independent writers over time. The Center also works to pair peer consultants with Writing-Intensive courses.

For more information, visit the Center for Reading and Writing.

The FRC is a place dedicated to promoting teaching excellence. To that end, FRC offers extensive faculty workshops, including several writing-related professional development opportunities. FRC helps faculty to share best practices with course-level writing assignments and assessments. FRC also supports faculty who are working on their own writing through writing circles and peer review sessions.

For more information, visit the Faculty Resource Center.

The College Library collaborates with faculty to provide student workshops on informational literacy, including the important writing skills of finding, analyzing, and citing proper sources. The Library also hosts a comprehensive set of materials for faculty to design assignments and assessments, including a Competencies and Progression Rubric. Librarians are also available to consult with faculty on how to best utilize the many tools offered by the Library.

For more information, visit: the Library.

The Faculty Writing Institute is a collaboration between WAC, Faculty Resource Center, Center for Reading & Writing, and Potter Library. This day-long, faculty-led institute provides a series of workshops dedicated to sharing best practices on topics including: writing assignments, writing assessments, providing student feedback, texts to support writing, technological tools for writing, and much more.

Download a PDF document about past Faculty Writing Institutes.

The Portland State University Online Writing Center provides a comprehensive guided tour to writing papers. Below are steps of the writing process:

• Step 1: Understanding an Assignment
• Step 2: Finding a Topic
• Step 3: Developing a Working Thesis
• Step 4: Researching
• Step 5: Creating an Organizational Plan
• Step 6: Writing a First Draft
• Step 7: Expanding and Improving Ideas
• Step 8: Improving and Refining Organization
• Step 9: Checking Your Use of Research
• Step 10: Checking Final Details

Explore steps 1 through 10 when you view Writing Step by Step.

The Online Writing Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill provides thorough, easy-to-understand directions in helping writers develop an argument and thesis statement. Under “Writing the Paper,” click on “Argument” and/or “Thesis Statements” when you view www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/index.html

Colorado State University’s online writing resources provide an example of a student’s argumentative essay entitled “Landscaping that Makes Sense for the West.” The “virtual tour” of the student’s essay begins with an analysis of the student’s claim, reasoning, evidence, and counter-argument. The tour ends with an assessment of the student’s effectiveness in making the argument and urges the reader to arrive at a claim based on the student’s argument. The essay can be used as a demonstration of argumentative writing which in turn provides a greater understanding of thesis paper writing. View Writing@CSU Guide.

Prewriting tasks are an immediate and effective way to relax, engage, and re-inform the writer about what the writer already knows in order to pursue the writing assignment. Pre-writing strategies serve the following purposes:

• Function as ice-breakers and help the writer overcome writer’s block.
• Immediately engage the writer and further motivate the writer to pursue the assignment.
• Enable the writer to explore and discover perspectives or convictions that may be used in pursuing the assignment.

The University of Kansas Online Writing Center describes the following prewriting strategies and activities:

• Brainstorming
• Clustering
• Freewriting
• Looping
• Questioning techniques

View Prewriting Strategies

After prewriting, the writer can develop an organizational plan and tentative outline.

The Portland State University Online Writing Center provides suggestions on creating an organizational plan and outline. View Using an Organizational Plan or Outline to Get Started.

The University of Kansas Online Writing Center provides directions on basic outlining of a thesis with topic sentences. View Prewriting Strategies: Listing.

Troy University’s Writing Center offers directions on outlining of a thesis, with topic sentences as well as primary and secondary support. View Essay Outline Form.

Troy University’s Writing Center also offers directions on outlining a body paragraph with a topic sentence as well as primary and secondary support. View Body Paragraph Outline.

Colorado State University has an online writing guide, “Planning, Drafting, and Organizing,” which can be used to assist a writer in starting a draft. The guide suggests the followingstrategies that writers can use to develop a draft:

• Defining terms and concepts
• Analyzing statements, ideas, and concepts
• Amplifying, clarifying, and explaining ideas
• Citing authority
• Citing common assumptions
• Qualifying assertions
• Providing contexts or associations for ideas and examples
• Using analogy
• Appealing to emotion

View Developing Your Ideas.

The Portland State University Online Writing Center provides strategies on writing introductions. View Writing a Strong Introduction.

Troy University’s Online Writing Center provides strategies on writing conclusions. View Writing Conclusions.

Strategies in Using Direct / Indirect Quotations and Avoiding Plagiarism

The following skills are necessary in writing a thesis paper:

• Emphasizing and explaining how a direct or indirect quote supports the main idea of a paragraph
• Citing and documenting correctly
• Detecting and avoiding plagiarism

The University of Kansas Online Writing Center provides basic directions on incorporating references and citing quotes. View Incorporating References.

Portland State University’s Online Writing Center provides a comprehensive overview on incorporating research and using citations and documentation correctly. View Checking Your Research.

The University of Kansas Online Writing Center provides directions on writing the paraphrase, summary, or précis. View Paraphrase and Summary.