Information for Students
The SOM Writing Lab is located in Room 1.218.
You may drop in to the lab anytime but priority is given to those who make appointments. You can make an appointment by clicking the BOOKNOW! icon on the left..
The Writing Tutors will help you in any way you need help. If you want them to help you invent a paper topic, they can do that. If you want them to help you organize a document, they can do that. If you want them to help you smooth out your sentences, they can do that. If you want them to help you edit your grammar, they can do that. It all depends on what YOU need..
NO.
Not necessarily. Writing Tutors will help you to strengthen your document but it is your instructor who assigns the score. If you have any questions about how your writing will be evaluated in an assignment, meet with your instructor and ask them. THEN you should make an appointment and communicate that information to the Writing Tutor. Your chances of success are much higher if you clearly communicate the assignment instructions and expectations to the Writing Tutor.
Yes. The lab gets VERY busy right before writing assignments are due and so making an appointment early will ensure that you get help when you need it.
Information for Faculty
Any SOM student can use the Writing Lab, but our focus is the Undergraduate Program. However, since Writing Tutors are skilled writers with training in tutoring, they are able to help graduate students with writing issues that do not require advanced subject knowledge. Multilingual graduate students often work with our tutors on general issues such as grammar, word choice, sentence structure, and punctuation.
The SOM Writing Lab is typically staffed by PhD students in Arts and Humanities. Tutors have at least 2 years of experience helping students improve their writing and most have worked in bilingual contexts. You can be confident that your students will get qualified help in the SOM Writing Lab.
1) Include a link to the Writing Lab web site in your syllabus or writing assignments and encourage students to get feedback on drafts. The URL is “http://som.utdallas.edu/somResources/writingLab.php” As part of your writing assignments, explain to students that their best work will rarely be their first draft. Remind them that getting the perspective of a second reader will help them write better papers.
3) Tell students about online writing tips and reference materials on the Writing Lab web site. These are useful as students draft papers and, later, check on final revisions.
4) Tell students you have noticed that taking the time to use the Writing Lab services leads to higher quality papers.
5) Send us an email requesting an image of our flyer so you can forward it to your students with a recommendation that they use the Writing Lab.
Tutors do not edit papers because the primary goal of the Writing Lab is to help students improve their writing. Ideally, a conversation about a draft begins with larger issues of structure, clarity, and effective argument, with the tutor and student taking time to work through revisions. Then the conversation moves on to finer points, with the tutor highlighting patterns of error or offering revision guidelines, still coaching the student in editing information. Sometimes creating a polished paper requires a second appointment after the student has worked more on the paper.Final Papers may have errors for several reasons:
* A draft has too many issues to work through in the course of one tutoring session.
* A student applies revision guidelines and reworks the paper after the session, but does not spend enough time on final editing.
* A student comes in one or two hours before the paper is due, so there is time to work on only selected areas.
* The tutor and student may work through part of a paper, and then the student will take the paper home to apply the editing tactics to finish the paper. The student, who is still learning, may make a few errors.
Yes, in these ways:* Many students, even juniors and seniors, do not understand how to use and document sources correctly. Tutors can introduce them to this skill, provide illustrations, and drafts of the student.
* When students copy and paste passages, tutors will often recognize the problem simply from changes in writing style. This creates an opportunity to work with the writer on stating ideas in his or her own words and using sources correctly.
* Expectations about documenting sources vary across cultures, and the tutors are prepared to explain to students what they need to do to adapt to U.S. academic conventions.
1) Get help from a peer tutor in pushing students beyond Google to do research. To supplement
Ms. Phillips’ introduction to library research tools, ask a student who has already taken your class to come in and give a quick talk from the student perspective about how useful the library tools can be.
2) Take another look at how your assignments are designed. Often students struggle with assignments because they do not understand the expectations or simply do not know the standard forms of writing in a new context. Be sure the assignment specifies the audience (possibly a hypothetical audience), the role of the writer, the purpose for writing, and the kind of document to write. If you do not provide a model, consider referring students to the Writing Lab or its website for models of formats, for example, a memo. We can work with you to provide an appropriate model.
For more information on effective assignment design, see the following sites:
o
www.depts.washington.edu/cidrweb/Bulletin/Writing.html
o
www.writing.ku.edu/instructors/guides/assignment_design.shtml
3) Make the criteria for success part of the assignment. List the characteristics you will look for when grading and, if appropriate, describe in specific detail different levels of achievement that correspond to different grades.
Being explicit about grading criteria helps students understand what success looks like, which the students are still learning. The following websites give examples of different kinds of grading rubrics that make it easier to communicate criteria for success:
o
www.writing.umn.edu”
o
www.tcnj.edu/~writing/faculty/rubrics.html
4) Build a draft and revision step into assignments. To keep feedback and grading time manageable, try one of these options:
a) Give credit for a complete draft, but do not give students feedback on it. Instead, suggest they take the draft to the Writing Lab, or include peer feedback as part of the assignment. Explain to students that you are requiring the draft to help them do their best work.
b) Give students comments on the draft so they can apply your suggestions as they revise. Grade, but give minimal comments on the final paper. Your comments at that point make much less difference in student learning.
c) Create multi-step assignments. Instead of giving students assignments on unrelated topics, create a series of assignments in which the writing and thinking on one prepares students to take on the next assignment. Usually the final paper will be a larger project that pulls together the thinking skills and content areas of the previous papers.
Students are welcome to bring any piece of writing for school or a job search: class assignments, application essays, cover letters, or resumes.
Group projects are welcome. The group should make an hour-long appointment to discuss a draft with a tutor, and as many of the team members as possible should participate. Frequently, the tutor facilitates discussion about how to revise problem areas in the draft, so it is important to have all or almost all group members at the meeting. Long papers are difficult to critique on screen, so the group should bring a printout.
Make an appointment in the JSOM Writing Lab and let experienced writing tutors help you strengthen your ability to make smart choices when you write. Read our writing lab FAQ for more information.
