The Writing Center is Open for Business

A new service has been added to ECC this semester. The learning center specialists have offered an online writing center. Students may go to Moodle and upload a thesis, poem, or even an idea to be reviewed by the specialists and receive a helpful critique to improve their paper.

A study was done last year to see what benefits the specialists have been able to offer to the students who use their help. The results showed a 10% improvement in the writing classes for the students who used the writing center three or more times.  That can translate to a whole grade increase.

The response has been very good with about 150 papers submitted online so far, with some students submitting more than one. Often the students will email back and express their appreciation for the help they receive. This new resource has been used almost as much as the walk-in or appointment service. The writing specialists would like to see more students take advantage of their assistance. They would be happy to review papers full time, whether in the learning center or online.

“We are under-utilized and would like more students to come to us or use the online service. We can help with any stage of writing,”  Writing specialist, Lisa Kang said.

“We don’t want students to have a text or finished paper to come to us and then feel pressured to complete the paper in a short time. We can be of more help if they come earlier and have less written. We can help them find a thesis and give ideas of how to present it. We can also read together to help understand poetry,” Writing specialist, Tim Derifield said.

It is important when using the online service to make sure the papers are submitted in a Microsoft Word document. Word pad, pdfs and Google docs are all software that may pose problems and the specialists will not be able to write back on them. Remember to add the description of the assignment for the specialists to review.

Our school offers our students this benefit to improve writing abilities and grades. Be sure to use this resource as often as you can.