Graduate Writing Center

 

 

Individual Consultations

The Graduate Writing Center at TCU offers assistance to graduate students and faculty from all academic disciplines. Consultants most often work by appointment only with graduate students on course essays, theses, dissertation or funding proposals, dissertations, as well as book proposals or manuscripts. Because graduate writing projects tend to be longer than undergraduate writing, 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 our Zoom and OWL options can work well across time zones.

We also advise graduate students to schedule several sessions for lengthier pieces such as thesis or dissertation chapters. Appointments typically last from 30-60 minutes, both in-person or via Zoom. To reserve a time for your consultation, go to our appointments scheduler and choose your appointment from the Zoom menu or the in-person menu. In accordance with TCU policy, face masks are optional during in-person tutorials.

Graduate Writing Consultants

• Cheryl Slocumb, Director
• Cynthia Shearer, Associate Director
• Sidney Thompson, Writing Consultant
• Lindsay Dunn, Writing Consultant
• Arch Mayfield, Part-time Writing Consultant

Online Writing Lab (OWL)

Graduate writers may submit portions of their work for review through the Center for Writing OWL. Remember to allow ample time for the careful reading that graduate-level writing requires. If you are submitting a thesis or a dissertation in its entirety, it’s advisable to submit chapters separately to ensure that we can review them in a timely manner and identify any potential issues with documentation styles. We are not an editing or proofreading service, but we are happy to instruct grad students about matters of organization, style, clarity, citations of sources, bibliographies, as well as grammar and punctuation patterns. Typically we return short documents within two business days; however, long seminar papers or thesis or dissertations chapters are exceptions to that.

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, The Associated Press Stylebook, and many others. 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. The group meets on Wednesday afternoons from 2:00 -4:00 p.m. CST in the Center’s conference room in 419 Reed Hall.  The format is hybrid, so grad students not on campus may participate from a distance via Zoom.  To sign up or get more details, contact Dr. Lindsay Dunn at L.M.Dunn@tcu.edu.

Dissertation Boot Camp

In conjunction with the Graduate Studies Office, the Graduate Writing Center conducts TCU’s annual Dissertation and Thesis Boot Camp. Like us on Facebook for notification of these dates, locales, and times, or contact Dr. Lindsay Dunn at L.M.Dunn@tcu.edu.