What is the Writing Lab?

The Writing Lab exists to help students improve their mastery of the skills of composition — invention, organization, and style. Focusing primarily on the student’s development, we neither edit nor proof-read papers; instead, we help students discern areas for improvement in their writing and guide them as they work on those areas. All the tutors in the Lab are graduate students at UD. We work with students on papers from across the Core, not just Lit Trad papers, including scientific writing and applications to various scholarships and programs.

General Guidelines for your visit to the Writing Lab

Important Note: In order to maximize this time, please complete the "Upload your documents" step and the "Sign in" step listed below BEFORE your session begins. 

Appointment Guidelines

1. Sign up:  
   For an online session, pick a slot in the "Writing Lab Online" Google appointment calendar using the link above.  For an in-person session in Braniff 304, pick a slot in the "Writing Lab In-Person" Google appointment calendar using the link above.
   
   
2. Upload your documents:
   Send copies of your documents to writinglab@udallas.edu. To streamline your session, complete this step BEFORE your session begins. Give your documents unique, recognizable names, such as your last name and the date of your session. You need to share:  
   Your paper (the most recent draft!)
   The prompt for your paper (if you have it)
   
   
3. Sign in:
   Follow this link to sign in. To make your session as efficient as possible, please complete this step BEFORE your session begins.
   
   
4. Come:
   Arrive a few minutes before the time of your appointment. If making an in-person visit, bring either a laptop or a hard copy of your paper to the session so that you and your tutor can see the same words, punctuation, formatting, etc. Also provide a copy of your paper prompt.  
   For an online session, open the invitation to the Zoom video conference you will have received in your inbox. 
   
   
5. No shows:
   if for any reason you cannot make the session you signed up for, cancel the appointment on your Google Calendar. If you have not done so half an hour before your session was scheduled to start, and you fail to come, that will be counted as a no show. Any student who has three no shows in a semester without reasonable notification could be banned from the Lab for the rest of the semester.
   
   

Other Important Information and Lab Rules

• If you are 10 or more minutes late to your appointment, an appointment is not guaranteed.
• Please note that your session's fruitfulness will correspond to your own preparedness. So please come with specific questions about your draft or outline, and prepare yourself to think and learn about the arts of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Your tutor will not create a thesis for you (that would constitute plagiarism!) or provide your provisional thesis with textual argumentation. Instead, he or she will help you to develop your thoughts about the subject as you present it in your paper.
• Your session is only 25 minutes long. Due to the conversational nature of this kind of learning, you should NOT expect to work through an entire paper in one session. Instead, you are more likely to focus intently upon a few areas of improvement.
• Undergraduates are limited to one 25 minute slot per day per assignment.
• Tutors are not allowed to edit, review, or critique take-home, out-of-class exams without the written consent of the exam-giving instructor.
• Tutors will comment on grammar, syntax, organization, and/or argumentation of the draft presented.  Their task is to show where the paper needs to improve, not to re-write the paper.  For that reason, tutors will point out consistent errors in grammar and syntax, but not correct them all.  Similarly, tutors will point out problems with evidence use or information flow, but they will not generate the paper's argument, evidence, or information. 

Should you have any questions regarding the Lab, please do not hesitate to reach out to the Writing Lab Coordinator:

Ms. Miriam L. McElvain
Writing Lab Coordinator
Writing Lab: Braniff 304
Email: mmcelvain@udallas.edu