WAC Faculty Handbook 2002-2003

A BRIEF GUIDE FOR FACULTY

A MESSAGE FROM THE WAC COORDINATOR

This brief guide to the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) program at Wright State University addresses the most frequently asked questions about the WAC program and its requirements. Also included are some general suggestions about making writing assignments and responding to student papers, some sample assignments, and a list of resources for WAC teachers and their students. More detailed information on these topics is available on the WAC web page: http://www.wright.edu/academics/wac/.

One of my most important responsibilities as coordinator of this program is to work with faculty as they incorporate writing in their classes. I will be happy to do that in any way that I can, whether working with individual instructors or groups of people teaching different sections of the same course. If your department employs graders for large writing intensive classes, I will gladly help you design training sessions as needed. When your department or college is ready to begin assessing the impact of the WAC program, I may be able to assist as you develop the criteria and procedures that best fit your situation. In short, I hope you will call on me in whatever capacity you need.

Joe Law, WAC Coordinator
344 Millett Hall
Phone: 775-2155
E-mail: joe.law@wright.edu

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ASSUMPTIONS UNDERLYING WRITING ACROSS THE CURRICULUM PROGRAMS

The following statement comes from the writing program at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Because it provides such a clear statement of the assumptions on which WAC programs are based, it is reproduced verbatim here.

For a good part of this century, writing was assumed to be a concern of only English departments, and students who had trouble writing would often say, "I'm not very good at English."

Research shows, however, that good writing is a concern of nearly everyone, from police who have to write accident reports to engineers who coauthor environmental impact statements.

Research also shows that police, engineers, mathematicians, and philosophers have different standards for determining what is good writing.

Much of this research didn't occur in a laboratory. Rather, it involved ethnographers in sociolinguistics and communication who observed and recorded what people do in their day-to-day lives.

Here, in slightly technical language, is a summary of some of the ethnographers' basic findings.

All meaningful language use-speaking, reading, writing-takes place within a language community and is understood and learned only within the particular language community.

The forms of "good" language use vary from one language community to another. Standards of "good" writing vary from culture to culture and, in a university, from discipline to discipline.

Students improve as writers through practice, particularly when provided with instruction and guidance while they are working on pieces of writing within the context of a specific discipline.

Writing promotes learning; what we learn through writing we are more likely to retain and more likely to understand.

Source: http: http://www2.hawaii.edu/~uhmwrite/wi/writmat1.htm

Though written to describe a different program, the above statement outlines the basic principles underlying WAC at Wright State as well. The purpose of this brief guide is to suggest ways of achieving these goals.

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WRITING ACROSS THE CURRICULUM AT WRIGHT STATE

Goals of the WAC Program

The Writing Across the Curriculum program at Wright State University has three explicitly stated goals:

To improve students' writing proficiency-their ability to develop ideas and transmit information for an appropriate audience in an organized, coherent fashion while writing with appropriate style and correct grammar, usage, punctuation and spelling.

To encourage students to use writing as a learning tool to explore and structure ideas, to articulate thoughts and questions, and to discover what they know and do not know, thereby empowering students to use writing as a tool of discovery, self-discipline, and thought.

To demonstrate for students the ways in which writing is integral to all disciplines, essential to the learning and conveying of knowledge in all fields.

Course Requirements of the WAC Program

All undergraduate students admitted (or readmitted) to WSU for the fall quarter of 1996 and thereafter will be required to complete a total of eight courses in the WAC program: ENG 101 and 102, four designated Writing Intensive (WI) courses in General Education, and two designated WI courses in the major. The four GE classes are Economics 200, Sociology 200, a Great Books course (English 204, Philosophy 204, or Religion 204), and one science course formally designated as WI. When course substitutions are required for particular majors, WI sections of the substitute are offered.

WI courses in the major are determined by the department and may vary from quarter to quarter. All WI classes are clearly identified in the class schedule.

The number of WI courses required for transfer and returning students depends upon the number of hours transferred or previously completed at Wright State. Students with questions should be referred to their advisors. A full statement of the policy is available at http://www.wright.edu/academics/wac/. Print copies are available in the WAC office as well.

Requirements for WI Sections of GE Courses

Each WI section of a GE course will include writing assignments totaling approximately 1500 words which will be evaluated for content, form, style, correctness, and overall writing proficiency and which will provide students an opportunity for revision and improvement.

Assignments may take many forms and include a mix of formal writing (e.g., a number of short papers evaluated in both draft and final form, a long assignment broken into smaller parts, thus allowing for multiple drafts, feedback, and revisions) and informal writing (e.g., journals, logs, short responses to lectures, essay examinations).

These writing assignments should be linked to the three overarching goals of the GE program:

to sharpen critical thinking, problem solving, and communication skills as a basis for life-long learning;

to cultivate an awareness of the moral and ethical insight needed for participation in the human community;

to increase knowledge and understanding of the past, of the world in which we live, and of how both past and present have an impact on the future.

Requirements for WI Courses in the Major

Any course in a major program may be designated "Writing Intensive" by the unit offering the course. Writing Intensive courses in the major will require a total of at least 4500 words (18 double-spaced pages) of writing, at least half of which will be evaluated formally and all of which will count as part of students' performance in the course.

Grades in Writing Intensive Courses

Each designated WI section will generate two grade sheets: one for the course grade, one for the writing grade. The writing grade will be entered separately from course grades on student transcripts as PASS/NO ENTRY. In order to receive a PASS, students must complete the writing component of WI courses with a grade of C or better. All students enrolled in the class will be listed on the second sheet and must receive a writing grade for the course.

Students who do not successfully complete WI classes may satisfy these requirements in a number of ways. For more information you may consult the WAC office or the WAC web page.

Writing Across the Curriculum Committee (2001-2002)

Rich Bullock, Writing Programs Director

Joe Cavanaugh, Lake Campus

Joyce Howes, COSM

Leo Finkelstein, CECS

George Whitfield, Student Gov’t

Richele O'Connor, CEHS

Rick Johns, ESL

Nicky Macklin, Writing Center

Carol Holdcraft, CONH

Tom Sav, COBA

Tracey Steele, COLA

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MAKING WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

Planning Writing Assignments

The following principles should inform writing assignments:

Each writing assignment should reinforce the content base of the course.

Writing assignments should be sequenced from easier and personal writing to more demanding and public writing.

Writing assignments may be sequenced so that a complex task is carried out in several more easily managed stages.

Writing assignments should build in an opportunity for response and revision.

Writing assignments should be paced to allow feedback before the next writing assignment is due.

Setting Up Writing Assignments

A written assignment sheet is crucial. Even though instructors may be quite explicit in describing the writing assignment, it will be difficult for students to remember details unless the assignment is in print. The sheet should include the following kinds of information:

the kind of writing expected (analytical, argumentative, etc.)

the scope of acceptable subject matter or research questions the length requirements

the source or citation requirements (if appropriate)

the documentation form expected (if appropriate)

the formatting requirements

due dates for drafts, other preliminary materials, and final version

penalties for not meeting basic requirements and deadlines any other criteria used in evaluating the paper

The short writing assignments that follow are meant to suggest some possibilities for your consideration.


Some Short Writing Assignments (In Class)

In-Class Writings: Without taking more than five minutes of class time, impromptu in-class writing can be used in a variety of ways: to ask students to summarize the key points covered, to stimulate flagging discussion, to provide an opportunity for reflection on complex issues, to check comprehension of reading material, and the like. These brief writings need not be graded, though you might use them as an indicator of class participation in determining a course grade.

Essay Exams: Instructors often ask if essay exams "count" as part of the writing requirement, and the answer is yes. The easiest way to keep track of the number of pages of writing is to specify an approximate number of words for each answer on the exam itself. Students find the guidelines useful, too.


Some Short Writing Assignments (Outside of Class)

These assignments may be adapted to fit a variety of classes and instructional purposes. They can be especially helpful in giving students an opportunity to grasp and synthesize new concepts.

Abstracts or Précis: Ask students to write brief summaries of their readings in their textbook or supplementary materials. Writing a one-sentence précis requires careful reading and revision. The resulting sentence can reveal much about how well a reader has grasped a writer's argument.

Critiques: Have students critique the material they are reading, perhaps asking them to identify the writer's claim and the evidence used to support that claim and then to assess its effectiveness. Such assignments should be helpful in getting students to think in terms of argument, something that they can be encouraged to carry over into their own papers.

Position Papers: Ask students to write a one-page paper justifying a given position on a controversial issue. A series of two or three papers on the same topic might become the basis of a longer paper. You could also provide a thesis for students to support or refute.

Definition and Application: Ask students to define an important term or concept and then illustrate the definition by applying it to some situation outside the classroom. Alternatively, you might ask whether a definition applies in a given case.

Focused Responses: Give students a question to consider as they read assigned material. A one-page answer might be the starting point for class discussion.

Annotated Bibliography: Have students identify and evaluate potential sources for a longer research paper.

Partial Research Paper: Ask students to submit individual sections of a research paper in progress. For example, a brief statement of the nature and scope of the problem they are investigating might prove helpful, as might a survey of the literature on the subject.

From Exam to Essay: If you use essay exams in your class, brief answers might become the basis of longer papers written outside of class. You might also consider asking students to write more briefly about other sorts of exams; for example, they might be asked to explain their reasoning for incorrect choices on multiple choice exams or explain how and why calculations went awry.

Some Sample Assignments from WSU
Professors frequently express concern that students fail to grasp certain key points in their reading. The following short writing assignments, drawn from a variety of classes at Wright State, all require careful reading and reflection before students begin to write. Although each example is designed for a specific discipline, the general strategies can be adapted readily to all sorts of subject matter.

When Mari O'Brien (Modern Languages) teaches Comparative Literature 310 (Literary Autobiography), she asks students to select a short passage (no longer than a paragraph) in each autobiography that they feel is the most characteristic or most revealing-the passage that holds the key to understanding the entire work. A short paper (1-2 pages) explaining that choice is due on the first day a work is discussed. Not only do these papers get students to read more analytically, but they also stimulate lively class discussion as class members discover the passages others have chosen.

David Dominic (Geological Sciences) occasionally gives his students in an advanced course a scientific article without its abstract and asks them to supply one. When the resulting summaries are shared in class, students are sometimes surprised at the differences in what has been identified as a key point, especially when they are given the actual abstract prepared by the original author.

Anna Bellisari has students in CST 240 (Nonwestern Cultures) locate a brief article about a situation or event in a nonwestern society that reflects cultural differences between West and Nonwest. In a three-page essay, students are asked to describe the event briefly, relate it to the textbook and other materials used in the course, and then compare the event to something similar in this country. She emphasizes that the final section is the most important because it challenges the students' analytical and critical thinking skills.

These three examples merely begin to suggest some of the possible writing activities that might be used to encourage students to read more carefully. Still other writing assignments developed by WSU faculty are described in some detail in the WAC newsletters available on the WAC web page. Assignments range from casual letters to formal technical reports. You can find illustrations of position papers, sequences of short papers leading to a larger term paper, and ways to encourage students to synthesize large amounts of information at the end of the term. The disciplines represented include such diverse fields as music history, economics, engineering, classics, geology, modern languages, and biology. This collection of assignment ideas increases with each newsletter, so be sure to check the web site on a regular basis. Copies of the newsletter are also available in the WAC Coordinator's office.

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What Students Want to Know About Writing Assignments The staff of the campuswide writing program at the University of Hawaii at Manoa interviewed over 200 students about their experiences in writing intensive classes. Their responses-which will seem very familiar to any experienced teacher-can be condensed into four questions. Here are their questions, along with some commentary and suggestions.

1. "How will the writing assignment help me to learn the course material?"
   It's easy to forget that the purpose of an assignment isn't automatically clear to students. Explicitly linking it to the goals of the course will help students see the value of an assignment. Saying something like "I want to be sure you understand the difference between Concept A and Concept B" or "Your notebooks show what you've learned about collecting and evaluating data" confirms that an assignment is a way of learning the material, not busy work.
2. "If you had to do this assignment yourself, how would you do it?"
   In addition to encountering new ideas, students are often encountering new cognitive tasks. Models are especially helpful in such cases. For example, if you're asking students to evaluate research methodology, you might demonstrate ways that can be done or provide a printed example with key features marked.
3. "How does this writing assignment or topic relate to the work that specialists do in this field?"
   Such a question is most likely to occur in advanced classes as students think more in terms of professionalism. In fields where written records have legal implications, that concern ought to be stressed; questions about the amount and type of writing done on the job might be asked of visiting professionals as well.
4. "If you evaluate my work on this assignment, what exactly will you be looking for?"
   A clear statement of criteria for evaluating written work can be provided in the course syllabus or the assignment itself. The answer to this question should be clearly connected to the purpose of the assignment as well. Here, too, examples of successful papers can be helpful.

The same survey that produced these four questions includes some student comments that confirm the suspicions of seasoned teachers-what we think we say is not always what our students think they hear.

Source: http://www2.hawaii.edu/~uhmwrite/wi/writmat1.htm

The distance between instructors' expectations and students' perceptions reinforces the importance of clear communication about the purpose of the writing we assign. We cannot simply assume that our intentions are always understood.

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RESPONDING TO STUDENT PAPERS

Two objections to implementing writing in content area courses are particularly frequent. First, responding to papers is always work, sometimes unrewarding work. Moreover, instructors not trained as teachers of writing often feel hesitant to comment on student writing because they feel they are outside their area of expertise. Neither of these problems will go away, but the burden of grading can be reduced. More importantly, judicious minimal marking can help students learn the course material and improve their writing at the same time.

A number of strategies can reduce the amount of time required for marking papers. For example, assigning several short sequenced essays should reduce the overall time involved because later papers will build on what has gone before. In addition, sustaining the writing over a longer time gives the student more opportunities for improving. Suggestions for short assignments appear in the previous section, and the resources listed at the end contain more.

Sometimes the amount of time required to mark a paper could be spent more beneficially in a conference with a student. That may not be practical with large groups of students, but preparing a short list of concerns and putting the student(s) in touch with the Writing Center would provide a chance for more sustained feedback. (See Appendix A for more information about the Writing Center and its services.)

Grading Rubrics

Using a previously prepared grading rubric can reduce the amount of time spent commenting on the papers themselves. Rubrics also highlight the objective criteria used in evaluating papers and may be used to advantage with drafts and completed papers alike. Categories will vary according to the assignment, but the following are fairly common:

content (depth of coverage, thoroughness of development, quality of argument)

organization and coherence

readability

mechanical and grammatical correctness

Normally, the first category will be weighted more heavily than the others. Rubrics are often presented in the form of a table, like this one:

A rubric should be used in conjunction with a summary comment addressing specific features of the individual paper. An explanatory sheet describing the qualities of each characteristic might also be supplied with a table.

Instead of using a generalized rubric, you can tailor one to the specific needs of your classes. Rick Wantz (Human Services) designed the following sheet for his courses on behavioral assessment. It identifies particular concerns students should address, among them citing a minimum number of sources and adhering to APA guidelines.

Rubrics can be made even more specific to address particular features of a single assignment. The following illustration is excerpted from a rubric designed by Marlese Durr (Sociology) for SOC 200, a course that may enroll as many as 400 students. In this particular assignment, students have been asked to observe and report on an instance of one of the sociological concepts introduced in the course.

The rest of the rubric is equally detailed, making it relatively simple to respond quickly and consistently to a large number of papers. Because students are given a copy of the rubric with the assignment, they should also have a clear sense of what is expected of them.

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Minimal Marking

You can decrease the quantity of teacher comment without decreasing its quality. In fact, attempting to mark every mechanical error is often counterproductive. Research indicates that studying the mechanical aspects of writing in isolation has little long-term impact on writers, whereas things learned in context are likelier to be retained and applied. Thus, teachers can best help their students by responding primarily to the subject matter, putting any comments about their writing in that context. Asking writers to clarify ideas requires them to address writing. Limiting marks to the most important concerns can also foster independent learning. The thorough marking of a representative passage or two can provide a useful model for writers to make revisions elsewhere; submerging a paper in a sea of red ink is likelier to lead to mechanical corrections of surface error than to real revision. Extensive marking of mechanical problems also tends to obscure much more important comments about what the writer is saying. In a draft, there is no reason to spend much time identifying individual surface errors if the writer is going to be making extensive changes to the text.

Some WAC specialists suggest avoiding grammatical terminology and relying instead on simple language and pointed questions to guide revision: "How does this evidence support your argument?" "Where do Brown's findings fit in?" "No need to quote so much. Summarize instead." "Better-your evidence is stronger here."

That last comment deserves emphasis. Students need to be told what they've done well. It's not just positive reinforcement (though that can't hurt); for writers finding their way through new conceptual territory, confirmation that they are on the right path can be extremely helpful.

If you do want to draw attention to mechanical errors that do not impede understanding, that can still be put in terms of the subject matter, as something that distracts the reader from the writer's message. In many situations, it may be effective to describe errors in terms of what is-or is not-acceptable in professional writing in the field. A reminder that career advancement is often linked to writing abilities may also have an impact on students, who tend to be highly pragmatic.

Identifying things that interfere with reading does not require an extensive vocabulary of arcane terms. Ray Smith, Director of the Campus Writing Program at Indiana University, recommends using only a few symbols, abbreviations, and words in the margins of papers:

Symbols

1.       circles locating errors confined to one or two words

2.       wavy underlines noting larger errors

3.       checks praising good word choices

4.       straight underlines highlighting well-put phrases or sentences

5.       arrows and question marks pointing out puzzling connections of words

Abbreviations/Words

1.       AGR (agreement)

2.       FRAG (fragment)

3.       MM (misplaced modifier)

4.       CS (comma splice)

5.       REF (reference)

6.       PRED (illogical predication)

7.       //STR (parallel structure)

8.       Wordy

9.       Choppy

10.   Unclear

11.   Awkward

12.   Good

Even Ray's short list may be more than is needed. The five symbols and items 8-12 in the second list will probably be sufficient for most situations. If you do use abbreviations, you'll need to provide a key and probably some illustrations. Good ones appear in the full text of his "Quick Guide to Lite Marking." You can find it on Indiana's Campus Writing Program Web site.

No matter what system you develop for responding to student writing, it's crucial that students know how to interpret the marks you make on their papers.

What Students Want You to Know about Marking Papers

Working as a writing specialist in the Claude J. Clark Learning Center, SUNY College at Plattsburgh, Mary Dossin heard many comments about the way professors mark papers. She summarized her findings in an article printed in the October 1992 Composition Chronicle. She was surprised by students' reaction to one teacher well known for his demanding grading. Because they understood most of his marks and comments on their papers, they were more likely to tell her how much they learned from him than to complain. They were likelier to respond negatively when they did not understand what their instructors had written. Here, in brief form, are her conclusions:

What students appreciate most is the opportunity to rewrite their papers after they have been marked or discussed.

Students respond well when instructors demonstrate in their comments that they have made a real effort to understand the student's point and message.

Students want comments they can understand and are irritated by indecipherable handwriting and obscure jargon or abbreviations.

Students respond well when standards are clear.

Students are most frustrated by papers that are returned with only a grade.

Students complain most about professors who make only negative comments on their papers and don't tell them what they have done well. They also need to be told what they have done well so that they can continue doing it.

Students resent what they perceive as condescension and sarcastic humor.

Finally, students like to receive their papers back as quickly as possible, certainly before the next writing assignment is due.

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RESOURCES FOR WAC TEACHERS AND THEIR STUDENTS

WAC Office
WAC Coordinator: Dr. Joe Law
344 Millett Hall
Phone: 775-2155
E-mail: joe.law@wright.edu

The WAC Coordinator is available to consult with individual faculty members about ways to incorporate writing in their classes. The WAC office also schedules faculty workshops each quarter and produces a newsletter.

Online WAC Resources
The web page for Wright State's WAC program is located at http://www.wright.edu/academics/wac/. It includes the full text of the document outlining the program as adopted by Academic Council in April 1995. In addition, it contains a list of WAC workshops and other activities scheduled for the current term, back issues of the WAC newsletter, and links to other resources. Among the latter are WAC web sites that offer especially good materials on designing assignments, responding to student writing, dealing with the paper load, and other practical matters.

Some Print Resources for WAC Information
Of the many books offering practical guidance for incorporating writing in classes, two are especially useful: John C. Bean's Engaging Ideas: The Professor's Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996) and Richard Bullock's St. Martin's Manual for Writing in the Disciplines: A Guide for Faculty (New York: St. Martin's, 1994). Copies of both are available in the office of the WAC Coordinator. Also available there are a number of other books, including specialized guides for writing in individual disciplines.

Center for Teaching and Learning
Director: Dr. Dan DeStephen
023 Paul Laurence Dunbar Library
Phone: 775-3162
Web page: http://www.wright.edu/ctl/

The Wright State University Center for Teaching and Learning was established in 1993 with the following goals:

To enhance the climate for discussion of teaching issues

To provide programs and materials for groups

To work with individual faculty to meet their needs

To reach those goals, the Center provides a number of services, including a guest speaker series, brown bag lunches, book discussion groups, workshops, and a monthly newsletter. Faculty are invited to use the Center's collection of books, newsletters, articles, manuals, and videos focusing on teaching enhancement. In addition, private consultations and self-assessment programs are also available.

The University Writing Center
Interim Director: Joe Law
031 Paul Laurence Dunbar Library
Phone: 775-4186
Hours: 9:00-5:00 and 6:00-8:00 Tuesday and Wednesday; 9:00-4:00 Friday (Fall 2002)

Note: Evening hours quarter to quarter. The Writing Center is not open for tutoring during the first week of each quarter, the last days of finals week, and breaks.

Writers may receive help with a variety of tasks, such as generating and expanding ideas, organizing and revising drafts, editing and proofreading papers, and formatting papers according to MLA, APA, or other guidelines. In conjunction with the WAC program, the Writing Center offers workshops linked to specific writing intensive GE courses at instructors' request.

For more about the Writing Center, see Appendix A or www.wright.edu/academics/writingctr.

Online Resources for Students
An abundance of online information and assistance is available to students. The following links have been chosen because they address certain common needs of writers, but they are merely a sampling of the available resources. Please share them with your students.

Online Tutoring
http://iwca.syr.edu/IWCA/ETutoring.html
Many of the entries on this list of writing centers offering online tutoring restrict their services to students enrolled at a particular school; however, some do work with students from other schools. Advise students to check carefully to be sure services are available to them.

Paradigm Online Writing Assistant
http://www.powa.org/
This interactive, online handbook, developed by Chuck Guilford of Boise State University, deals with such subjects as discovering topics, organizing, revising, and editing. It also covers various types of writing (e.g., thesis/support essays, exploratory essays, argumentative essays, informal essays) and documenting sources.

Research and Documentation in the Electronic Age
http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/
Developed by Bedford Books to accompany Diana Hacker's handbooks, this site is organized in four large areas devoted to the humanities, social sciences, history, and sciences. Each is subdivided into a section on locating sources and one on documenting them according to the style most frequently used in each area (MLA, APA, Chicago, and CBE style, respectively). This site has been updated to reflect the fifth edition of the APA Publication Manual (2001). To be absolutely current with APA style, you can send students to the APA site listed below.

APAStyle.org
http://www.apastyle.org/elecref.html
Maintained by the American Psychological Association, this is the site to visit for truly authoritative guidance on dealing with electronic resources in APA style. You can also subscribe to receive updates to the publication manual via email.

Evaluating Web Resources
http://www2.widener.edu/Wolfgram-Memorial-Library/webevaluation/webeval.htm

Guidelines for Critiquing Web Sites and Web Style Manuals http://osf1.gmu.edu/~montecin/webcritique.htm
These two sites provide unusually thorough guidelines for evaluating information found on the Internet. Both provide numerous links to other sites that also deal with the same subject.

Wright State's Writing Web
http://hypatia.wright.edu/Dept/ENG/wsuwweb/057wr.htm
Developed by members of the Wright State English Department, this site contains much essential information, including an online version of The Guidebook for College Composition Courses. This manual, written specifically for students in English 101 and 102, outlines the goals and purposes of those courses and also provides tips on rewriting essays, avoiding plagiarism, and finding assistance in writing instruction. In addition, the site provides links to help with basic technical computing problems and to a number of other online resources.

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APPENDIX A: THE WRITING CENTER AND WAC COURSES

A Message from the University Writing Center
The University Writing Center welcomes students in writing intensive courses across the curriculum. We offer writing consultation, free of charge, to all WSU students.

Any student may schedule one thirty-minute appointment per week; international students and those who are in developmental classes or registered through the Office of Disability Services may schedule more time. Students may also walk in without an appointment at the top or bottom of an hour and work for thirty minutes with a consultant who does not have a client scheduled at that time.

Writing consultants are available to offer help to writers on tasks such as generating and expanding ideas; organizing and revising drafts; editing and proofreading; formatting papers in MLA, APA, or other research styles; tackling grammatical problems; and other writing concerns. Writing consultants offer one-on-one assistance; however, writers must do their own work. Consultants do not write or edit others' work.

The Writing Center also offers a library of resource books on various writing topics, a computer lab, help using computers or word processing, workshops on various writing topics, and a Writer's Hotline (775-2158) for quick, one-time questions that can be answered over the phone.

To help your students make the best use of the Writing Center, please consider the following suggestions:

Ask students to bring all printed information they have related to a particular assignment.

Send copies of your current assignments to us at 031 Library. If that information is available on a web site, let us know so that consultants can access it during a tutoring session.

If you have "models" of a particular assignment that students have submitted in previous quarters, we would like to keep them on file here for tutors' reference. Information about what you are not looking for in an assignment would also be helpful (e.g., not citing a textbook, not using first person).

Provide specific written suggestions to your students about what you would like them to focus on with a tutor.

Request a "tutor talk" for your classes by one of our writing consultants. This 5-7 minute presentation covers what kind of help students may seek in the Writing Center.

Inform your students about the Writer's Hotline, a telephone service offered during our operating hours. Students and faculty can call 775-2158 to ask questions about grammar, punctuation, usage, writing style, or documentation.

Please contact the University Writing Center at 775-4186 with any questions or requests.

E-mail may be sent to Joe Law, Interim Director, or Holly Blakely, Assistant Director.

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APPENDIX B: DEALING WITH PLAGIARISM

Most instructors have been urged to include a statement on every course syllabus indicating that academic dishonesty-which includes plagiarism-will not be tolerated. Some even refer their students to the definition of academic dishonesty appended to the Code of Student Conduct in the Student Handbook. It is available online at http://www.wright.edu/students/judicial/stu_integrity.html.

Despite such warnings, students still occasionally submit written assignments that fail to acknowledge appropriately their use of outside sources. Why might they do so?

Much student plagiarism is unintentional. Even when students have covered the topic in high school and college writing classes, they may not yet have an entirely clear sense of what constitutes fair use of others' words and ideas-particularly as they begin working with unfamiliar concepts in new subject areas. In that case, spending a few minutes in class looking at the way writers in the field handle outside sources may be useful. It might be worthwhile to distribute a handout defining and illustrating acceptable practices. (Some possible models are available in the WAC office.)

International students sometimes face additional difficulties in this area. In some cultures, for example, students are taught to memorize and copy the work of respected figures as a mark of respect for them. You can find more information on this topic-and others related to teaching writers of English as a second language-on a University of Texas web site created by Dené Scoggins- http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~scoggins/esl/.

At times, however, plagiarism is deliberate, often the result of desperation as writers rush to complete work at the last minute. Certain teaching strategies can help reduce the occasions (and temptations) for that sort of plagiarism.

The following suggestions are adapted from Steve Reid and John Pratt's "Coping with Plagiarism," which originally appeared in the December 1988 Composition Chronicle. Although designed for writing courses, these ideas can easily be adapted to other classes.

Limit the choices of topic and change the list frequently.

Don't accept papers deviating from a clearly specified format.

Specify the kind of paper you want and provide a copy of your criteria for grading it.

Require that a certain number of sources be very recent.

Ask for a working bibliography early in the term and have students note where they found each source.

Ask for a tentative outline well before the final version of the paper is due.

Specify a date after which students cannot change their topics.

Give an unannounced test on the paper topic shortly before the final version is due.

Have students submit notes and all drafts with the final paper.

Along with the final copy, ask for photocopies of outside sources (or a printed version of downloaded files), with quoted passages highlighted.

Require a second copy of the paper you can keep on file.

While nothing will completely prevent plagiarism, strategies like these should reduce its likelihood. In addition, requiring that students submit materials as they work on a project should improve the quality of the final product.

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This page last updated September 12, 2002 by WAC staff (hnb)