For Faculty
We offer resources for faculty, whether it be to assist students or for professional development.
Information to Include in Your Syllabus
You can include the following information on your syllabus as a way to encourage your students to use the Writing Center resources available to them:
The Writing Center is a resource for students, faculty and staff working on writing projects in any field and at any stage of the writing process. Located in the Chester Fritz Library, Room 321, the Writing Center offers free individual sessions with a writing consultant. Make an appointment online at UND.edu/writing-center/.
Professional Development
Work with a Consultant for Your Projects
What can we accomplish in 30 minutes?
In a thirty-minute session, we can talk about the big picture of your project (e.g., organization, argument, content) or read and discuss a portion of your draft (generally about 4-5 double-spaced pages). We can also coach you on strategies for working through a large project.
We offer one-hour sessions for writers who have a longer project and would benefit from the extra time--most often grad students and faculty. You won't be able to make a one-hour appointment online, but any consultant can help you with scheduling. Typically faculty schedule their next appointment at the end of a session, so the consultant can make the one-hour appointment right then and there.
What if the consultant doesn't understand my paper?
By working with writers from many different academic backgrounds, consultants develop strategies for offering feedback on highly specialized papers. Your contribution to the session is also particularly important. If the consultant says, "I don't understand this paragraph," you will ultimately decide for yourself whether the reader's problem is unclear writing or simply a lack of specialized knowledge.
You will also need to consider your discipline's conventions, since a consultant outside your field won't have the same insider knowledge that you do. Your work with the writing consultant may generate questions you'll want to discuss with a colleague.
What's the difference between working with the Writing Center vs. an editor?
While interactions with editors vary depending on the type of editor, most of the dialogue about a piece of writing tends to take place after the editor has read and commented on the piece, asking questions, making suggestions. Then the writer responds to these and waits for the next set of responses from the editor.
At the writing center, consultant and writer read the manuscript together, addressing issues as they arise. If the consultant finds, for example, that the meaning of a sentence is unclear, he or she will ask questions to determine whether the confusion is simply due to a lack of familiarity with the subject matter, or a result of, say, missing information or a sentence structure that invites misreading. If they agree that a change is in order, they discuss possible solutions—alternate wordings, combining or breaking up sentences, changing the order information is given—and when a suitable solution is found they continue on. Feedback is immediate, and the collaboration takes place in real time.
Can you edit my paper for me?
All of our sessions are collaborative conversations between the writer and the consultant. We can introduce you to strategies for editing your own work more efficiently, and we can go through portions of your work with you and talk about what we notice and offer suggestions. But if your main concern is to save time, you'll want to hire an editor familiar with the conventions of your discipline.