Writing Center

The Cornish Writing Center is a free resource for all Cornish students that provides support to writers of all departments and abilities. We welcome students with both academic and professional writing projects to visit us at any stage in the process from coming up with ideas to polishing a final draft.

In our individualized half-hour sessions, writers can expect to have lively conversations with peer consultants and receive practical and friendly feedback on their work. Students are welcome to drop-in during posted hours to consult with a consultant or to use our computer lab and printer. Contact us for appointments and/or additional information.

I’m interested. How do I get started?

Drop In Hours

Drop in any time and a consultant will assist you as soon as one is available. Drop in appointments are available on a first come first serve basis.

Make an Appointment

Contact us or stop by our office to set up an appointment.

How does a Writing Center Conference work?

Our approach to helping you develop your writing skills include:

• Clarifying the assignment or project
• Identifying and addressing your aims
• Attending to focus, organization, development and proofreading
• Responding to your work with questions and suggestions

What to Bring

• A copy of your assignment or reason for writing
• Any notes or drafts you have written
• What you hope to achieve in your visit to the Writing Center

Frequently Asked Questions

Who are the consultants?

Our Writing Center consultants are composed of Cornish students and the Writing Center Coordinator.

Peer consultants are interested and inquisitive writers, learners, and artists who are enthusiastic about working with others. They receive on-going training in writing pedagogy, peer response, and methods of consulting. The Writing Center Coordinator’s specialty is rhetoric/composition and writing pedagogy. She is also a faculty member in the Humanities and Social Sciences, where she teaches courses in the study and practice of writing.

Can students bring their papers for proofreading?

We will absolutely help you edit and proofread your writing. All writers need a reader to help them catch typos and notice patterns of grammatical errors.

However, our purpose as a student resource is neither to do things for you nor to tell you what to write; rather we offer personalized, individual guidance to help students attain success as writers and learners. So when you come to the Writing Center to work on proofreading, expect to learn some new strategies and become a stronger editor of your own writing.

Why use the Writing Center?

The Cornish Writing Center is a free resource for all Cornish students that provides support to writers of all departments and abilities.

We work with students to address writing questions such as:

• Have I done what the assignment asks me to do?
• How do I make an instructor’s assignment my own?
• How do I get ideas for my writing project?
• How do I anticipate the needs of my project’s audience?
• Are all the parts of my writing clear? Do the parts connect?
• Does my writing have a direction yet?
• Have I left something important unsaid or included too much?
• How do I write using sources?
• How do I give credit to the sources I’ve used?
• How do I make effective use of Internet-based sources?
• How do I make sure I don’t have a lot of grammar mistakes?
• What resources are there for writers with disAbilities?
• How do I write a résumé and cover letter for a job application?
• What is plagiarism and how do I avoid it?
• As an ESL writer, how do I become a stronger writer in English?

Resources for ESL & International Students

The center provides language assistance for International and ESL students, including help with expanding vocabulary, understanding assignments, conveying ideas, understanding sentence structure, and working with verb tenses and articles.

We offer one-on-one consulting and ESL resources, both at the center and online, which are helpful for developing effective reading, writing, and speaking. Contact us for more information.

Writing Resources

• Activities for ESL Students
• The Internet TESL Journal
• Ohio University ESL Student Resources

Vocabulary Building Resources

• Art & Architecture Thesaurus Online
• Dave’s ESL Cafe
• Vocabulary University
• Yahoo’s Dictionary Page

Resources for Faculty

We invite faculty to supplement their own classroom writing instruction with Writing Center resources by referring students to us in your assignments.

We would be happy to have a representative visit your class to meet students and describe the Writing Center resources during a 5 – 10 minute class visit. We are available to provide assistance and feedback on the creation of writing assignments, how to evaluate student writing, and discuss writing pedagogy with you.