The Writing Center
Make an appointment with a Writing Center consultant REMINDER: If you cannot keep a Writing Center appointment, please be considerate of others and remove your name from the electronic sign-up page.
The Writing Center complements and extends the writing instruction cadets receive in the classroom by providing help with a full range of activities to improve their writing, at any level and in any discipline. Professional and peer writing consultants work with cadets in one-on-one conferences on every aspect of the writing process, from planning a paper to polishing the final draft.
The purpose of the Writing Center is to provide non-evaluative assistance for cadets who wish to become more confident, flexible, skillful writers. In accordance with the VMI Honor Code, the Institute's Work-for-Grade Policy, and the ethics of tutorial practice, the writing projects with which cadets receive assistance reflect their own work. Therefore, consultants do not supply new ideas or phrasing, nor do they correct errors in the text. Instead, they help cadets develop the strategies and skills they need to improve their texts.
Consultants model a range of writing behaviors, from brainstorming activities that lead writers to discover viable topics to sentence-combining strategies that enable cadets to express their ideas in more complex but clear prose.
Our Writing Consultants Can Help You:
- Conquer writer's block
- Brainstorm and choose a topic
- Develop an outline
- Narrow your topic and formulate a thesis
- Incorporate sources effectively
- Acknowledge your sources
- Develop strategies for revision, editing and proofreading