University Writing Center

Teaching Tips

It’s easy to find what’s wrong with your students’ writing and harder to find what’s right. But focusing on what students are doing well may ultimately be more useful in helping them to improve.

From grade school on, most of the feedback students receive on their writing focuses on what they’ve done wrong: spelling errors, comma mistakes, vague wording, awkward sentences, rambling paragraphs. They may see the occasional “Nice!” or “Good example” in the margins, but most writing teachers focus on what they think needs “fixing.” As a result, students often approach a writing assignment feeling defeated before they even begin. They’re like dogs that have been kicked by a previous owner; they’re wary and worn down.

View from the center

Working at the University Writing Center is like seeing the state of writing at Texas A&M through a wide-angle lens.

We conduct more than 5,400 consultations a year with students at all levels—from freshmen to doctoral candidates—who come from all colleges and departments. We help with everything from English 104 papers to wildlife management plans.

As we work with your students on the writing you’ve assigned—as we question, advise, cajole, and cheer them—they are teaching us as much about writing as we are teaching them.

Some of what we’ve learned from our work might surprise you.

From the Director

When I hear W course instructors express frustration over students’ lack of basic writing skills, I am sympathetic. Students in a W course should already know how to write a well-formed sentence within a well-formed paragraph; how to adapt their style and arguments to a general, educated reader; how to organize an academic essay or research paper; and how to cite scholarly sources.

So why, if our students have taken foundational writing courses (here or elsewhere), do they often seem unable to handle the basics?

Faculty Spotlight

When Assistant Professor Ginger Carney tells her biology students that writing will be important in their future careers, she’s speaking from experience. Carney became a biologist because she loved science, but she soon found she was spending more than half of her time writing. That’s why, when she came to the biology department at Texas A&M four and a half years ago, she agreed to teach the department’s first W course, “Critical Writing in Biology.”

Summer workshop to focus on plagiarism

“Their Cheating Hearts: Why Students Plagiarize and What You Can Do About It” will be the topic of the UWC’s summer faculty workshop to be held Friday, July 10 in Evans Library, Room 204E.

UWC Executive Director Valerie Balester and UWC Associate Director Candace Schaefer will discuss how faculty can actively discourage plagiarism, including using tools like Turnitin.com proactively and designing assignments that minimize students’ opportunities to cheat. Matt Fry, director of the Aggie Honor System Office, will discuss how to proceed if you suspect a student has plagiarized.