Kennesaw State University
 

English Department, EB155
Kennesaw State University
1000 Chastain Road, #2701
Kennesaw, GA 30144-5591
(phone) 770.423.6297
(fax) 770.423.6524

ksuenglish@kennesaw.edu

Newsletter

The Writing Center
Room 242 Humanities
(770) 423-6380

Hours Of Operation
Monday - Thursday 9:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Friday 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon
Saturday

closed

Sunday 1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

 

Make an Appointment | Preparing for the Regents' Test | Information for ELL and International Students | Handouts and Resources | Just for Faculty ...

The Writing Center is more than a free service available to all members of the university community; it is a place where anyone who writes—those who love it, those who struggle with it, and everyone in between—can come for help in becoming a better writer. In fact, that is the goal of the Writing Center: to produce not just better writing but better writers .

The Writing Center is also a welcoming place—we have coffee, comfy chairs, and a computer lab for general use. Our tutors (faculty and students) are friendly and eager to sit down and discuss any aspect of your writing with you.

Please click on the scheduling link below to set up an appointment for help in writing in any discipline, at any stage of the writing process. Instruction can include (but is not limited to) the following: topic development, drafting, grammar, punctuation, research writing, and documenting sources. Writing Center sessions focus on revision and learning rather than on editing or proofreading, but our tutors are always happy to show you how you can better apply these skills to your own work.

We look forward to seeing you in the Writing Center!

—The WC Staff

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Preparing for the Regents' Test

The Writing Center provides students with introductory information and instruction on the essay portion of the Regents' Test. Students must register and take the Regents' Test after they have earned 30 credit hours. Registration is available on-line during normal registration periods.

We suggest the following steps to prepare for taking the test:

  • Well before your test date, download and review this information packet: regents_handout.pdf.
  • Under timed conditions and following the guidelines in the information packet, write a practice essay (or write several until you “get the hang of it”).
  • Schedule an appointment with a Writing Center tutor to review one practice essay; we can discuss the strong and weak points of your essay and offer suggestions for how you might address both when taking the actual exam.

For more information on KSU guidelines for the Regents' Test, please read pages 5-7 of the University-Wide Degree Requirements:

http://www.kennesaw.edu/academicaffairs/acadpubs/ucat2004-05/k.gened.pdf

For more information about the Regents' Exam, including an extensive list of essay topics, visit the Board of Regents' Testing Program website at http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwrtp/.

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Information for ELL and International Students

The Writing Center welcomes ELL and International students and can provide those students with help in understanding conventions such as argument, idiom, structure, and style that often can provide particular challenges for these learners.

We remind all students that while Writing Center tutors can assist students with understanding sentence-level errors, tutors do NOT proofread or edit student work. Additionally, tutors are not experts in disciplinary subject matter or reading.

ELL and International students may want to visit the ESL Study and Tutorial Center for additional help in reading, writing, advisement, and Regents' test preparation. Contact David Schmidt, ESL Study Center Coordinator, at (770) 423-6377, or visit http://ksuweb.kennesaw.edu/~dschmidt/.

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Just For Faculty ...

The Writing Center serves as an important resource for faculty interested in enhancing or simply examining their teaching or use of writing in their courses. Writing Center instruction supports the process of peer review and multiple drafts/revision but in no way replaces instructor feedback. The Writing Center encourages writing across the curriculum and serves as a resource center for the practical and theoretical aspects of composition and rhetoric.

How the Writing Center Can Help You

The Writing Center Library houses an extensive collection of thematic and rhetorical readers, rhetorics, literary anthologies, texts on teaching writing with literature and teaching creative writing, and current writing handbooks, including the official MLA, APA, and Chicago style manuals. Books on all aspects of composition and rhetorical theory and practice, including information on basic and ELL writers, literacy studies, linguistics, argumentation, writing centers, and writing across the curriculum also are available.

One-on-one consultations may be arranged to discuss particularly challenging student writing. Studies indicate that when teachers and tutors communicate, student success is increased. Writing Center tutors are happy to discuss tutorial sessions in more depth when appropriate, offering insight into student perceptions of assignments, comments, etc.

Session reports in which tutors summarize the work done in a student tutoring session are sent to faculty so they (1) know that a student has visited the Center and (2) can better understand and support efforts to improve the student's writing.

How You Can Help the Writing Center Help Your Students

  • First and foremost, tell your students about the Writing Center! Informational handouts on the Writing Center are available for distribution to your classes, and you can schedule a tutor “outreach” visit to your class so that students can receive a “personal” introduction to the Center. To obtain handouts or schedule an outreach, please contact Mary Lou Odom at modom3@kennesaw.edu.
  • Help students understand the protocol and mission of the Writing Center. Remind them to make appointments to see a tutor and to adhere to the policies found on the Writing Center 's homepage and posted in the Center. Please do not make the Writing Center a “requirement” for your entire class. Students get little out of Writing Center instruction when they feel forced to be there or perceive the visit as remediation or punishment. Such requirements also can make it impossible for other students from other classes to be seen at all. Do encourage use of the Center to all students and strongly advocate a visit for those individuals who are in the greatest need of help.
  • Help students to see the Writing Center as a site of teaching and learning by avoiding suggestions that it is a place where papers are “checked,” “proofread,” or “edited.” Please do not have students “make-up” missed peer reviews or other class elements with a visit to the Writing Center.

Lastly, let us know how we're doing. If you're pleased with a session, tell us! If you have concerns, we'd like to know that too. Keeping the lines of communication open is essential to helping each other help our student writers.

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Kennesaw State University