At the Writing Center, we aim to help students on what we call the "macro" level, in which we focus primarily on structure and the comprehension of their work. This is a more holistic approach to writing and consultation that aims to build skills and confidence. Some students, however, will still feel nervous about the … Continue reading Easing Notions about Grammar
When someone hands you their paper and asks for your thoughts, it can be hard to narrow down what feedback would actually be useful to give. As readers, we can spiral and default to this is great! or I love this! While the sentiment behind this kind of support is always well intentioned, it often … Continue reading The Art of Giving Feedback
Scenario: you’re sitting in class, eyes watching the red hand of the clock quickly tick, tick, tick, until the words “research article” in your professor’s voice slows it down. Your brain short circuits for a moment as you’re assigned a research paper that requires at least five peer reviewed research articles as sources. Utter dread … Continue reading Guide to Breaking Up Research Articles
Personal statements may be unavoidable, but they don’t have to be unapproachable. It’s hard to take all your life experiences and try to rank them to find what to write about for your personal statement. How do you even begin to summarize your entire life in a short essay? The key is to choose 1-2 … Continue reading The Heart of Your Personal Statement
The blank page and blinking cursor are a daunting sight for any student. Setting yourself up for a successful writing process can be extremely difficult, especially when dealing with dense, complex topics. Keeping yourself on track and organized is challenging when you have so many ideas swirling around in your brain. The best way to … Continue reading Outlining: Setting Yourself Up for Success
What is flow? The “Flow State” is a concept many are familiar with, but don’t always associate with writing. If you aren’t familiar, we can look at how the originator of the concept describes it. The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says flow is “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing … Continue reading Let’s Talk About Writing in a “Flow State”
A look at word choice in academic papers I'm sure at one point, we were all told once to look at a thesaurus and find "better" words when writing academic papers; for many students and young writers, vocabulary is something they think will make or break an essay— that using very complex and "professional" language … Continue reading Complex Doesn’t Mean Better
As a first-generation college student, trying to apply to law school can be difficult and confusing. Reaching a point in life when those you rely on most have not experienced can feel like the most stressful thing on the planet, especially when your goals reach so far beyond your reality. Trying to understand how to … Continue reading Law School Apps: Experiences from a First-Gen Student
My love for writing began in my third grade English remedial group, where I ended up after failing the benchmark test. Just a year prior, I had moved to the United States and started learning English. While I was happy with my progress until then, I quickly felt discouraged from this failure. At the time, … Continue reading Bilingualism: Its Impact on Writing in your Native Language
As a writing consultant and creative writing student, I have supported students and peers working on (quite literally) countless first drafts all across the board: literary analysis, lab reports, creative nonfiction, personal statements, fiction, cover letters – you name it, and I’ve probably looked at a first draft of it at some point. Which is … Continue reading First Draft Blues
“Personal Statement.” Two simple words when separate, yet when they’re put together, they create an intimidating task. It’s one of the pieces of writing that relies on you to talk about yourself in detail. You have to be the one to take control and lay out all your achievements, ambitions, past experiences, future career goals, … Continue reading Getting Comfortable Writing About Yourself
Dialogue: the most fun part of reading and the bane of my writing. Tackling dialogue can be intimidating, with too many worries about “is this in character?”, “is this something someone would say?”, or “is this something I would say?”. Despite all this, dialogue is an interesting way to convey a character's voice, move the … Continue reading Dialogue in Personal Statements and Narratives
Cultural sensitivity has become more relevant in all kinds of writing due to the impact it has on readers. Because of that, it is important for cultural sensitivity to be accessible to everyone. The best way to define cultural sensitivity is the awareness and knowledge of other cultures and their respective identities. Cultural sensitivity in … Continue reading Making Cultural Sensitivity Accessible to Everyone
It can be frustrating to feel disconnected from the institutional processes that so heavily impact our lives. Maybe you’re passionate about a certain political cause and feel like your representatives aren’t taking appropriate action, or maybe you’ve noticed an ongoing issue on campus that needs addressing. It’s easy to become disillusioned about your ability to … Continue reading Writing a Letter to a Representative
As a Writing Center consultant, I often encounter students who strive to make their work sound “smarter” and more sophisticated. While this inclination is understandable, the quality of your writing does not rely on how extensive your vocabulary is. The importance lies in being able to convey your thoughts in a clear and impactful way. … Continue reading Finding Your Voice: Embracing Authenticity in Writing
Approaching any sort of writing can be incredibly intimidating, but poetry often feels like an especially inaccessible practice, reserved only for those with some sort of mysterious, rare, natural-born talent. As a result, many of us discount poetry. We feel like we don’t fit the mold of what a poet seems to be, so we … Continue reading The Case for Notes App Poetry
The scene starts like this. You’re a little kid, sitting in your car seat in your mom’s car while she pulls up to the Burger King drive thru. You tell her you want the kids' meal and she relays that information into the speaker, speaking as clearly as she can. She has a little bit … Continue reading The Importance of Understanding ELLs
Throughout my time as a consultant at the Writing Center I have found one specific problem that comes up for many students across many different disciplines. This problem is simply how to begin writing without all the fear that comes with it. Oftentimes students will tell me that they don’t know how to start, or … Continue reading Write for Yourself, Then for a Reader
What is Creative Nonfiction? The term “creative nonfiction” sounds confusing. How can there be any room for creativity in factual writing? Well, just because writing is true, doesn’t mean it has to be boring! Creative nonfiction is a unique form that blends the reality of nonfiction with the craft of creative writing. It allows the … Continue reading Creative Nonfiction
Pull on your running shoes, friends, because today we’re going to talk about a new writing technique — writing sprints! What is a Writing Sprint? Thankfully, writing sprints don’t have anything to do with actual running! A writing sprint is basically just a timed, nonstop writing session; usually they’re on the short side, anywhere between … Continue reading On Writing Sprints
Dear Reader, Welcome to a question that will be your constant companion for the rest of your life: how should I write this email? We’ve all written emails before, whether quickly tapped out on phone screens or debated over for hours so you can get the wording just right. Emails make the world go round, … Continue reading Subject: How to Write an Email to Your Professor
So through your hard work, dedication, and hours spent pouring over applications, you’ve found yourself in grad school. You’re excited to be here and to finally start focusing on your subfield of choice. There’s a lot of work to be done but come on, you’re ready! You didn’t spend all that time in undergrad expecting … Continue reading Grad School: Comparing Your Writing
If you have recently spent much time in an academic sphere, you will know that there are a lot (and I mean a lot) of strong opinions about reading and what is worth reading. In an era of who-knows-what internet articles, genre fiction, and even fanfiction, you’re likely at some point to encounter someone who … Continue reading Read Everything
It’s ten forty-seven pm, and you’re staring bleary-eyed at your computer screen. The cursor blinks at you cheerfully, almost mockingly, as you finally tap out Ctrl+Shift+C. Your word count pops up. It isn’t the number you want. You watch in the hope that it changes. It doesn’t. You get up to pour another cup of … Continue reading Word Counts
When writing essays, sometimes the use of “I” is beneficial. During certain circumstances, you can use “I” – in that case, see our post on using "I" here. However, sometimes that is not the case and your professor or the academic journal has deemed it unnecessary to use “I”. “I” statements can lead to biases … Continue reading The Use of “I”
When tasked with writing a paper to American academic standards, it’s easy to feel intimidated. Your mind may be swarming with questions. Where do I start? How do I know if I’m doing this correctly? Wait, what’s the difference between APA and MLA again? You’re not alone! The questions bouncing around in your brain have … Continue reading Questions? Where to get Answers at VCU
In our earlier blog post, Ways to get the Benefits of Writing, we discussed some of the different ways writing can be helpful, even in the form of something like a letter or a writing game. But what if you prefer journaling? It will come as no surprise that journaling can have a variety of … Continue reading On Journaling
…Which means what, exactly? You may have heard this phrase in a class, out in the wild world, or even from a consultant at our Writing Center. But what does it mean, and how can this practice be helpful to you? First, let's discuss your writing process. Simply put, this is the process that each … Continue reading Visualizing Your Writing Process
I want to talk about something incredibly important, a topic that has a real impact on your reader–specifically, their eyes. Have you ever been reading an academic article, or a peer’s essay, and your eyes have gloriously landed on a superscript number at the end of a sentence? And you slowly look down to the … Continue reading The Case for Footnotes
Life after college — whether undergraduate or graduate school — can be daunting or scary as we transition into a new phase in our lives. Looking at the bigger picture and having a bunch of tasks is overwhelming. However, many of the skills we learned in college could apply to life outside of school, such … Continue reading Preparing for the Future
Picture this: you get an assignment and start to read the instructions and all it tells you is to write a compelling analytical research essay on a topic of your choosing. You sit there puzzled, wondering what exactly you’ll talk about. Is this even real? Do you have power over what you’re going to say … Continue reading Can I put “I” in this paper?: How to establish your voice in research
You’ve just finished an entire five-page essay, you’ve gotten it peer-reviewed, put it through a grammar checker, and re-read it nearly twenty times. And yet, you still can’t get that nagging feeling out of your head–you know the one, that overly harsh critic that looks at a paper and says, “This is terrible.” We’ve all … Continue reading Release Your Inhibitions: How to Eliminate Self-Deprecation in Your Writing
Author’s note: This is part two of a short series on how I overcome creative dread; click here for Part I. Both parts of this essay are a bit abstract, so I’ve inserted my inner thoughts in italic type to create clarity. You will find the steps of my creative process in bolded type. I … Continue reading On Creative Dread and Trusting my Process: Part II
Imagine wanting to write a novel. Maybe this is something you’ve dreamed about for years, writing on and off, a million half-finished projects falling in your wake.
As we enter the new semester and are faced with a host of new experiences and challenges, writing can become a key strategy to help cope with stress. Getting your thoughts onto the page can be hugely beneficial in a number of ways, and help support your mental health as you adjust to new situations. … Continue reading Ways to Get the Benefits of Writing
We at the Writing Center know that writing is not always something you do alone. VCU offers clubs for writers to engage with peers to discuss writing in fun and stress-free ways outside of the classroom. Maybe you’re minoring in creative writing or you’re an engineering student who doesn’t want to give up writing. The … Continue reading VCU Creative Writing Club
Oftentimes when I speak to writers who are struggling, they mention how much life can get in the way of their writing. “I just can’t get into the groove!” they say. The Emperor's New Groove (2000) And they aren’t alone. Sometimes writing itself isn’t difficult, but the circumstances around it — work, limited time, energy … Continue reading Building a Writing Routine
Anyone who has tried writing knows that it can be hard. And that goes for any type of writing; an academic essay or scientific thesis, a creative piece, or that novel you’ve been chugging away at. No matter the genre, any writer is likely to lose steam or hit writer's block at some point during … Continue reading Gamifying Writing
This is part 2 of a blog series. Click here to check out part 1, which is about overcoming perfectionism in writing. Have you ever sat down to write an argumentative research paper and had no idea how to proceed? You’re not worried about finding the ‘perfect’ word choice (i.e. how to write), but you … Continue reading Overcoming Barriers to Writing: Part 2 – A Lack of Content
This is the second part of a two part listicle. Click here to read the first part, which explores the process of creating a research problem, finding sources, and structuring your writing. 4. Writing about research Once you’ve determined the direction of your research and collected a solid foundation of knowledge, it’s time to dive … Continue reading Research Writing: The Listicle (Part 2)
Have you ever sat down to start a paper and been frozen in place, unable to type a single sentence? You know your content and the argument you’re going to make, but you can’t bring yourself to type anything. What stops you from writing? For many of us, the pressure for our writing to ‘sound … Continue reading Overcoming Barriers to Writing: Part 1 – Perfectionism
Okay, picture it: the week before that big paper, or essay, or creative piece is due. It’s probably late at night and your computer is far too bright in your face. You have to revise this paper or essay or whatever. You want to revise it, but the Writing Center is, sadly, closed and your … Continue reading Solo Revision Tips
Blank pages. Every writer's biggest fear. Sometimes being in academia feels like you have to learn another language. My first semester of my doc program involved a lot of nodding and pretending to follow conversations, googling terms and phrases I hadn’t heard before, and feeling like I just didn’t belong. I had never heard the … Continue reading Breaking the Bad Habit of “Good Writing”
from the writing center at virginia commonwealth university 