The rich and varied resources of the Center for Academic Excellence Writing Center will help you become a better and more proficient writer and teach you skills to help when you have to write for class. Our goal is to to help you acquire greater skill in grammar, punctuation, and writing.
Requests for your visit
- If you have a working draft of an essay, please read and edit your draft before bringing it.
- Bring a draft that is either typed or neatly written, preferably double-spaced.
- Decide in advance exactly what you need help with — grammar, punctuation, thesis statement, etc. — and allow sufficient time to work on that concern.
- Be sure to allow yourself time for revision. Waiting until the last minute to bring your essay to us will only frustrate you.
- If you want a quick visit, come prepared with a few specific questions; we cannot review an entire essay without adequate time.
- Be patient. Since we work on a first-come, first-served basis, you may have to wait while we work with other students.
How we can help
We can:
- Help you understand your writing assignments
- Help you understand a thesis
- Help you become a competent proofreader of your own work
- Discuss your paper with you during the prewriting stage
- Help you organize your paper
- Brainstorm so that you can choose a paper topic or discuss an already chosen paper topic
- Help you learn to identify and correct major problem areas in your paper's grammar, punctuation, organization, and content
- Help you document research papers, using MLA or APA
What we can't do
We can't:
- Proofread or correct your paper for you. We will, however, gladly sit down and discuss your paper with you.
- Read through and correct a paper that you have dropped off
- Rewrite any portion of your paper or tell you exactly how to edit and/or properly correct your paper's final draft
- Assess your paper in terms of grading or discuss grades or faculty members with you