Graduate Writing Center

 

Individual Consultations

The Graduate Writing Center at TCU offers assistance to graduate students from all academic disciplines. Consultants often work by appointment with graduate students on course essays, theses, funding proposals, dissertations, as well as book proposals or manuscripts.

Graduate writing projects tend to be longer than undergraduate projects, so we recommend submitting documents in advance of appointments to ensure our consultants can give them the careful attention they deserve. Distance learning students may find that Zoom appointments and Online Submissions options work well across time zones.

We also advise graduate students to schedule several sessions for lengthier pieces such as thesis or dissertation chapters. Select your appointment allowing adequate time to read and discuss your paper:

• 30 minutes (1-5 pages)
• 45 minutes (6-7 pages)
• 60 minutes (8-10 pages).

To reserve a time for your consultation, go to our scheduler and choose your appointment from the in-person or Zoom menu. Students may receive assistance from the Center for Writing once per day, whether through online submissions, in person, or via Zoom.

Our Rule of Threes

Because we encourage revision, personal growth, and independence in writers,

• Clients may book up to 3 appointments per week.
• Writing consultants will review up to 3 online submissions per week, 1 submission per day.
• Writing consultants will review a single document up to 3 times.
• Clients may work with the same consultant up to 3 times consecutively, then we recommend they work with different consultants.
• Writing consultants will work with alums who are new graduates up to 3 times within the first 3 months of graduation, specifically on graduate school application essays.

Online Submissions

Graduate writers may submit portions of their work for review via email. Remember to plan ahead and allow ample time for the careful reading that graduate-level writing requires. If you are submitting an entire thesis or a dissertation, please submit chapters separately to ensure that we can review them in a timely manner.

We request that you submit only one document as a Microsoft Word or pdf file attached to an email to our central account: writingctr@tcu.edu . Please include all relevant information:

• Your Name (and group member names, if submission is group-authored):
• Your TCU ID:
• Your Major:
• Your Classification (Graduate):
• Your course assignment or project:
• Is it your first, second, or third draft?
• What would you like us to help you with?

We are unable to review Pages documents or those saved on platforms requiring a log-in, such as SharePoint, OneDrive, or Google Docs.

We read and comment on Online Submissions from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. We respond to requests in the order in which we receive them, usually within 2 business days. Please do not make duplicate submissions; they delay our ability to review and return your paper in a timely manner.

Consultants will review 1 submission per student per day, up to 3 submissions per week.

Our consultants will review a particular assignment or project up to 3 times.

Documentation Style Consultations

Our staff are conversant in and experienced with a wide variety of research documentation styles most frequently required in TCU’s many grad programs. We keep on hand the most recent editions of all reference manuals such as The Chicago Manual of Style, The MLA Handbook, The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, The AMA Manual of Style. Many shorter documentation resources or teaching aids for these styles are available to view, print, or download:

Write Now

Write Now is a graduate student writing group that offers ongoing support in a relaxed setting to graduate students in all stage of their academic careers. Participants work on a variety of projects, including thesis or dissertation chapters, prospectuses, academic publications, conference papers, and seminar papers.

Write Now meets on Wednesday afternoons from 1:30 – 3:30 p.m. CST in the Center’s conference room in 419 Reed Hall. The format is hybrid, so off-campus grad students may participate from a distance via Zoom. To sign up or get more details, contact us at writingctr@tcu.edu .

Thesis and Dissertation Writers Retreats

In conjunction with the Graduate Studies Office, the Center for Writing conducts writers retreats for students working on theses or dissertations. Interested graduate students should follow us on Facebook or Twitterfor notification of these events or to contact us at 817-257-7221 or writingctr@tcu.edu .

 

 

Academic Integrity

We provide feedback on all aspects of writing, including organization, content, documentation of sources, and sentence-level concerns. We are not an editing or proofreading service, but we are happy to assist grad students with organization, clarity, citations, bibliographies, as well as grammar and punctuation.

While many our consultations are assignment-based, we are able to identify both strengths and weaknesses in a student’s work. If we notice patterns of error, we will attempt to teach a student how to avoid the error and we expect them to make any necessary corrections.

We may demonstrate ways students can revise particular passages, but we are not copyeditors. The aim of such revision is not to perfect the assignment of the moment but to influence long-term writing outcomes. We do not offer estimates of grades for written projects or critiques of professors’ assignments.

The writing center does not assist students with completing take-home exams, finals, or graduate written exams without the expressed written approval of the professor.