www.wrt.tcu.edu/newsletter3.1.pdf

From the Center The Newsletter of the William L. Adams Writing Center Volume 3 Issue 1 September 1999 On-line Writing Lab: The OWL Flies High The fall semester of 1999 marks
the second full semester in which
the Writing Center has operated an
OWL: an on-line writing lab. The
OWL saw tremendous growth in
usage during the spring of 1999,
and the Writing Center staff
expects the OWL to become
increasingly popular as more
students discover the resource this
fall.

The OWL allows students to
electronically submit up to five
pages of writing to a consultant at
the Writing Center. Students can
access the OWL by going to the
Writing Center web page at http://gamma.is.tcu.edu/wrt, where they will find specific instructions
for using the OWL under the link
titled On-line Writing Help.

Upon accessing the OWL by
selecting On-line Writing Help
from the web page, students view a
form that asks them for their name,
e-mail address, and classification.
Next students are asked to suggest
a focus for the on-line tutorial
(organization, documentation, grammar, usage, etc.) so the
consultant can better assist the
writer with specific concerns.
Students can then cut and paste up
to five pages of text onto the OWL.

Writing Center staff members
examine the submissions each
business day and attach comments
and suggestions to the file before
sending the submission back to the
author via e-mail.

Please inform your students of the
Writing Centers on-line tutorial
service and encourage them to
make use of this resource.
However, students should be
aware that writing consultants will
not respond instantly to submissions; responses will follow
as soon a possible from 8 a.m. to 5
p.m. on the first business day after
the submission has been posted.

Center Announces Workshops The Writing Center has scheduled
dates for three workshops in the
coming year. The first workshopa program focusing on
issues of grammar and stylewill
take place on Wednesday, September 15. At this meeting,
Ms. Margaret-Rose Marek, writing
consultant and technologies coordinator for the Writing Center,
will offer suggestions designed to
help students, faculty, and staff
avoid problems with grammar and
usage and write concise, well-
crafted sentences, paragraphs, and
essays.

The second workshop is scheduled
for Wednesday, November 10. At
this meeting, Dave Kuhne, Associate Director of the Writing
Center, will discuss the American
Psychological Association (APA)
style of documentation. Kuhne has
designed handouts that provide
examples of correct APA documentation and that assist
students in finding information
quickly in the APA Publication
Manual. Copies of this quick
guide to APA style are available
upon request.

Dr. Jeanette Harris, Director of the
Writing Center, will conduct a
third workshop on Wednesday,
February 2, 2000. Dr. Harriss
session will take up the issue of
r