We use cookies on this site to enhance your experience.
By selecting “Accept” and continuing to use this website, you consent to the use of cookies.
Writing Services
Writing services at Waterloo and Brantford can help undergraduate and graduate students develop the writing skills needed to succeed in their academic studies. We provide an accessible, supportive, student-centred environment where ideas can take shape and students can develop their writing through critical thinking.
Writing support includes:
- One-on-one writing appointments (online and in person) with a student or professional staff member.
- On-campus, in-class, and online writing workshops.
- Online writing resources.
In Waterloo, we are located in the Teaching and Learning Commons, 2nd floor Peters. Look for the Writing and Learning Lab, room P226.
In Brantford, we are located at One Market, room OM207.
We are currently offering both in-person and online writing appointments. Online appointments are conducted using Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Sharepoint/OneDrive.
Service Approach and Guiding Principles
We work with undergraduate and graduate students at any stage of the writing process to help them enhance their academic writing. The key principle of our approach is to support the writing that goes on in the classroom in a way that helps students become better writers and achieve their academic goals. Our work is informed by internal and external research on academic writing and instruction.
Writing Services has three full-time staff and approximately 15 paid student tutors.
Our mission is to help students become better writers and achieve their academic goals.
We value:
- An accessible, supportive, dynamic, community environment where ideas can take shape.
- Learning that is student-centered, engaged, and interactive.
- Diversity and a culture of inclusivity.
- The crucial connection between critical thinking and writing.
- The principles of academic research, inquiry, and integrity.
- The central role of language in the production of all text forms.
- The academic and institutional traditions of writing.
Our guiding principles:
- Writing Services uses a genre-based approach to promote genre awareness among students and faculty. This approach is derived from analysis of professional academic writing, model student writing, and writing theory and research.
- Writing Services recognizes difference and diversity among the various academic disciplines and, more generally, among discourse communities and rhetorical situations. We see Writing Services as having expertise on writing, rhetoric, and discourse; but each academic discipline is expert in its own disciplinary discourses and genres.
- Writing Services does not operate as a service for "defective students" but strives to support students in developing understanding of and competency in academic text conventions and language, in partnership with the various disciplines.
- Writing Services is research based; that is, we use research to inform our work. Pedagogy and research are tied. The notion that teaching and research intertwine is a foundational value of universities.
Statement on Generative AI
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology, such as ChatGPT, will undoubtedly reshape the ways in which we write, learn, and think. If used judiciously, generative AI has the potential to help students improve their writing and critical thinking skills. However, this technology also has the potential to limit student development. Writing is a form of thinking; we often write to discover what we think. If the writing process is offloaded to generative AI, students may limit their growth as thinkers and knowledge-workers.
Writing centres emphasize the process of writing, whether in conceiving, drafting, or revising a text. While generative AI may be incorporated into our future work, the philosophical and ethical challenges warrant us to proceed with caution. For the 2023-24 academic year, Writing Services will not use generative AI tools when working with students in one-on-one appointments. Instead, we will employ traditional writing instruction pedagogy to empower students to develop their academic voices. In this way, Laurier’s Writing Services aligns with the Canadian Writing Center Association’s statement on generative AI.