Welcome to the UD Writing Lab!
The Writing Lab will open for the Spring 2023 Term on Sunday,
February 12.
The appointments calendar is available now for students to request appointments.
***NOTE: YOU MAY ONLY SIGN UP FOR ONE SLOT PER PAPER PER DAY***
The Writing Lab continues to offer both in-person and online sessions! All sign-ups are online. When
signing up, please make sure that you are logged in to your University of Dallas account
such that your UD email address is displayed in the upper-right-hand corner of the
appointments calendar. This will ensure that the time zones of your calendar and ours
are synchronized.
Sign up for an in-person session
Note that though you are signing up online, you must meet a tutor in Braniff 304 or
possibly in Braniff 332 when two tutors are offering evening hours.
Sign up for an online session
Meet your tutor in the Zoom meeting 1-2 minutes before the designated time.
For further instructions regarding both on-campus and online sessions, see below.
Tutoring Hours of Operation
Sunday: 6:00-10:00pm
Monday: 10:00am-10:00pm
Tuesday: 10:00am-10:00pm
Wednesday: 10:00am-10:00pm
Thursday: 10:00am-10:00pm
Friday: 10am-2:00pm
Saturday: Closed
Online sessions will be held via Zoom, and the link to the meeting will be in the
Google calendar event description. In-person sessions will be held in Braniff 304, the room next to the English Department
office and, after 6pm, in Braniff 332, next to the Philosophy Department office.
If you are having trouble signing up for a Writing Lab session, please email the Writing
Lab at writinglab@udallas.edu or the Writing Lab Director, James C. Zeller at jczeller@udallas.edu.
What is the Writing Lab?
The Writing Lab exists to help students improve their mastery of the skills of composition
— invention, organization, and style. At the Lab, we want to help students become
better writers by attending, together, to the crafting of specific papers. Focusing
primarily on the student’s development, we neither edit nor proof-read papers; instead,
we aim to help the students discern areas for improvement, and to guide them into
the next stage of that growth. All the tutors in the lab are graduate students here
at UD. We welcome papers of all kinds, not just Lit Trad papers; we work with students
on papers from across the Core, including scientific writing, as well as on applications
to various scholarships and programs.
General Guidelines for Any Visit to the Writing Lab
Please share a copy of your paper via Google Docs with writinglab@udallas.edu, no less than 10 minutes before your session is due to start.
When sharing your document, please give your file a title that will make it easy to
recognize. An example of such a format would be your surname and the date of your
session: "Smith Oct. 7"
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.
Note, too, that 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.
Important Note: In order to maximize this time, please handle the logistical operations listed below BEFORE your session is to begin.
How to Make an Appointment
- Sign up: For an online session, pick a slot in the "Writing Lab Online" Google appointment
calendar here. For an in-person session in Braniff 304, pick a slot in the "Writing Lab In-Person"
Google appointment calendar here.
- Upload your documents: send copies of your documents to writinglab@udallas.edu. To streamline your session, complete this step BEFORE your session begins. You need
to share:
- Your paper (the most recent draft!)
- The prompt for your paper (if you have it)
- Sign in: Follow this link to sign in. To make your session as efficient as possible, please complete this step BEFORE
your session begins.
- Come: at the time you signed up for.
- 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.
- If you are 10 or more minutes late to your appointment, an appointment is not guaranteed.
- No shows: if for any reason you cannot make the session you signed up for, cancel the Google
Meet appointment on your Calendar. If you have not done so half an hour before your
session was scheduled to start, and you fail to come, your name will be written onto
our Wall of Shame! Any student who fails to attend three sessions without reasonable
notification will be banned from the Lab for the rest of the semester.
General Writing Lab Rules:
1. Undergraduates are limited to one 30 minute slot per day per assignment.
2. Tutors are not allowed to edit, review, or critique take-home, out-of-class exams
without the written consent of the exam-giving instructor.
3. 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 Director:
Mr. James C. Zeller
Adjunct Instructor of English and Writing Lab Director
Writing Lab: Braniff 304
Email: jczeller@udallas.edu
Writing Lab Resources
Marking Guide with links to explanations of Common Errors and exercises to help you
correct those errors.