Mission
In order to create and communicate academic knowledge, scholars in every discipline must cultivate advanced skills and habits not only with respect to their research, but also with respect to their writing. The Writing Center assists current and past graduate students in the cultivation of these writerly skills and habits through individual consultations, workshops, and other programming. As one of the few writing centers in the country that specifically serves the needs of graduate students, we also make it our mission to ask and answer the question of what services a graduate writing center could and should offer.
About Writing Consultations
We assist with materials such as:
- Thesis/Dissertation Proposals
- Thesis/Dissertation Chapters
- Graduate Coursework (e.g. presentations, bibliographies, seminar papers)
- Conference Abstracts
- Conference Talks
- Personal Statements, Teaching Statements, and Diversity Statements
- Article Manuscripts
- Grant Proposals
We address ‘big’ issues, including:
- brainstorming ideas
- the organization or structure of your document
- the logic or “flow” of your ideas
- the appropriateness of your argument for your reader
And we address ‘smaller’ issues at the sentence and paragraph level, including:
- principles of English grammar, style, word choice, and punctuation
- the “flow” of your sentences and sentence transitions
- questions of clarity
Beyond our purview:
Graduate writing consultants help students learn and implement writing strategies rather than “correcting” or copy-editing student writing. Consultants direct students to the library for questions about citations and the formatting of dissertations and theses.
