{"id":53708,"date":"2012-01-20T09:26:07","date_gmt":"2012-01-20T14:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=53708"},"modified":"2023-06-27T13:14:44","modified_gmt":"2023-06-27T17:14:44","slug":"to-improve-your-writing-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2012\/01\/to-improve-your-writing-talk\/","title":{"rendered":"To Improve Your Writing, Talk"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Thomas<\/a>
Thomas Deans, associate professor of English and director of the Writing Center.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The fastest way to improve your writing might be talking.<\/p>\n

At least that\u2019s how improvement begins when you visit the University Writing Center.<\/p>\n

The center, established in 2004 by the University Senate, works with students on academic papers, lab reports, personal statements for graduate school applications, freshman writing assignments, senior theses, and even personal writing. They handle assignments due within two hours as well as ones with long term deadlines.<\/p>\n

But most of the work required is not done at the center.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe point is to have a really good conversation about your work,\u201d says Tom Deans, associate professor of English in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and director of the center. Not only are students asked to read their work aloud, but also they are asked to clarify the assignment and analyze the audience.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe writer is in charge of his or her own paper,\u201d he says. \u201cWe help you set the agenda for your revision and make sure you have the tools and resources to get it done. The real work happens after you leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

Awarded the prestigious national Writing Program Certificate of Excellence for 2010-2011 from the Conference on College Communication and Composition (CCCC), the center is staffed by 25 undergraduate and five graduate tutors.<\/p>\n

They are not content experts but rather serious writers from a variety of disciplines. During the 2010-11 academic year, the tutors saw more than 3,100 students.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe recruit some of the most talented students on campus for our staff,\u201d says Deans. \u201cWe can be choosy because we have 10 applicants for every one tutoring spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

The center encourages the tutors to do research on writing and tutoring, and several have presented papers at academic conferences or published their findings.<\/p>\n

The Writing Center also emphasizes service by offering faculty workshops on writing pedagogy, supporting writing-intensive course instructors across the UConn curriculum, and working with a different local high school each year to set up a peer-tutoring center.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe mirror in the center what other academic departments do,\u201d says Deans. \u201cWe teach, we do research, and we provide public service.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The University Writing Center in the English Department helps students have a really good conversation about their work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":52469,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1855,1,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[43],"class_list":["post-53708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-neag","category-uncategorized","category-university-life"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-17 10:40:54","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53708"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53889,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53708\/revisions\/53889"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/52469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53708"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=53708"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=53708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}