EIU Writing Center

For Faculty

How You Can Encourage Students to Use the Writing Center

The Writing Center can help students from all academic levels and all majors, so we welcome you to encourage students to use this free resource. One of the best ways to inform students about our services is to schedule a classroom presentation for your classes. One of our staff members will provide your students with a brief introduction to the center, provide brochures and handouts, and explain how we can help them become stronger writers. 

Faculty can also provide their students with information about the Writing Center through D2L or course syllabi. Faculty who would like to add the Writing Center widget to their D2L courses can do so using these instructions for modifying the D2L course homepage. You can embed the 90-second orientation video from the Writing Center homepage into your own D2L course by clicking the triangle icon in the upper-right side of the video. We also invite you to adapt the two paragraphs below for use in your course syllabi:

I encourage you to use EIU's Writing Center located at 3110 Coleman Hall. This free service provides one-to-one conferences with writing center consultants who can help you with brainstorming, organizing, developing support, documenting your papers, and working with sentence-level concerns. The Writing Center is open to any student from any major at any stage of the writing process, and its system of one-to-one conferences demonstrates value and respect for individual writers, all of whom can benefit from feedback about their works in progress.

To schedule an appointment, you can drop by the Center (3110 Coleman Hall) or go to www.eiu.edu/writing. The Writing Center offers in-person appointments on weekdays and online appointments on Sunday–Thursday evenings. 

What Students Should Bring to Writing Conferences

When students come for a conference in the Writing Center, they should bring these items:

• The writing assignment or writing prompt provided by the instructor
• A printed copy of the paper or a laptop or a flash drive with the work in progress on it
• Questions and ideas

What Students Can Expect in a Writing Conference

During a one-to-one conference, here is what students should expect:

• We will offer a stress-free and open environment regardless of the student's major or class level, at any stage of the writing process
• The sessions will promote thinking about documents from a reader's perspective
• Consultants will ask questions that will prompt students to think about how to refine and support their ideas
• Consultants will offer advice on how to efficiently and effectively revise and edit their own work

What We Do Not Do in a Writing Conference

During a one-to-one conference, consultants will not 

• Write the paper for students
• Grade students' papers

Why Students Should Come in Early for Writing Conferences

You should recommend that students should come in early for an appointment for these reasons:

• We can help students understand and analyze writing assignments, even before they have begun writing
• We can help students brainstorm ideas
• Conferences with writing center consultants can act as a mini-deadlines to keep students on task and motivated
• Students can assure themselves spots in the Writing Center's busy schedule (this is especially important during peak times, such as mid-term and near the end of the semester).

Documentation of Students' Visits to the Writing Center

We appreciate when faculty actively encourage students to use the Writing Center. Upon request from the student, we can provide handwritten or email documentation following their visit to the Writing Center. This documentation is given or sent to the student directly. If you decide to offer extra credit or to make using the Writing Center a part of your assignment, you can ask that students request documentation and then share that documentation with you. Please note that we provide documentation only following completion of a one-to-one session.