Writer’s BlockThe

Main OfficeRickel Building, Room 244Monday through Friday: 8am–5pm

817-257-7221

Library AnnexMonday through Friday: 2pm–5pm

Sunday through Thursday: 6pm–9pm

817-257-6520

The Center for Writing is a place where students can talk openly about writing with someone who is non-judgmental, but informed. It is staffed by writing specialists who offer one-on-one conferences about writing in all disciplines. Aspecificpieceofwritingoran assignment usually serves as the focus of the conference; however, staffmemberswillreviewaspecificaspect of writing if the student asks. Writing center staff members will also provide reviews for students who are planning to take the Grammar, Spelling, and

Punctuation Exam administered by the TCU Department of Journalism. Students can make appoint-ments with the writing center at eithertheMainOfficeinRickelorthe Library Annex location in the Mary Couts Burnett Library. The online writing lab, or OWL, is yet another way students can receive assistance from the writing center.The OWL allows students to submit papers electronically for re-view by a consultant. Students can access the OWL by visiting the TCU Center for Writing website at www.wrt.tcu.edu.

About the Center

The Newsletter of the William L. Adams Center for Writing

The Center for Writing staff can assist with many writing projects including:

• Essays and research papers• Summaries and abstracts• Proposals• Recommendation reports• Case studies• Lab reports• Presentations and speeches• Letters of application • Résumés• Professional and business letters• Theses and dissertations• Creative writing projects• Public documents

How can we help?

Meet the StaffThe Center for Writing has a staff of trained and experienced writing consultants to help you with all of your writing needs. The staff contains professional staff members and peer consultants as well.

Professional StaffTheCenterforWritinghasseveralhighlyqualifiedwriters as staff members who are available to help students. The following people are the professional staff members for the upcoming year.

Steve Sherwood, Ph.D., M.F.A., Director David Kuhne, Ph.D., M.F.A., Associate Director Harry Antrim, Ph.D. Cheryl Carithers, M.A. Amy Hermanson Cynthia Shearer, M.A.

The center also welcomes back our part-time profes-sional consultants: Emily Cody, Glynn Mathis, Marie Laine, and Jeanne Rose.

Peer Writing ConsultantsThe Center for Writing is especially proud of its staff of peer writing consultants. These staff members are

outstanding student writers who are recommended for their jobs by faculty members familiar with their writing. Those chosen to work as peer writing consultants attend a series of training sessions designed to help them assist other students with writing projects. The writing center is pleased to introduce the peer tutors for 2008-2009:

Becca Allen,afirst-yearEnglishmajor Nick Boerner, a junior business major Matt Bridges, a Brite divinity graduate student Stephen Elkind, a senior English major Kristen Escher, a junior neuroscience major Cameron Jones, a junior graphic design major Meghan Roe, a graduate student in English Stephanie Scott, a senior English and Strategic Communication major Samantha Shircliff, a sophomore history major Rubertha Taylor, a Brite divinity graduate student Kelli Trapnell, a junior writing major

If you have outstanding student writers in your classes who may like to work at the Center for Writing, please have them call 817-257-7221.

A new staff member joins the writing center this year. Amy Hermanson holds a Ph. D. in English from Texas Christian University and is a specialist in composition and rhetoric. Her dissertation is titled Acts of Faith: Reading, Rhetoric, and the Creation of Communal Belief in Sixteenth-Century England. She earned her B.A. in English and Philosophy at Marquette University in 2002, and she is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Her rhetorical interests include classical, medi-eval, Renaissance, and modern rhetoric and rhe-torical criticism. Her interests in literature include the history of the novel, the history of reading, early modern religious literature, Shakespeare, and Mil-ton. She was an assistant to the Radford Chair of Rhetoric from 2006 until 2009. She is the co-editor of The Rhetoric of St. Augustine of Hippo (Baylor, 2008) and Advances in the History of Rhetoric: The First Six Years (Parlor Press 2007). The Center for Writing is very proud and excited to have her this year as part of the permanent professional staff.

New Staff Member

Peer Consultant Wins ScholarshipKelli Trapnell, writing major and peer writing con-sultantatthewritingcenter,isthefirstwinnerofthe Excellence in Literacy Fiction. The scholarship is endowed by best-selling novelist Sandra Brown and her husband Michael Brown. Brown has published more than 70 novels, 56 of which have appeared on the New York Times best seller list. Sandra Brown said that Kelli’s “writing dem-onstrates a vivid imagination, a remarkable ability to write in a wide range of genres, and a mature understanding of human emotion. This rare and wonderful combination of workmanship and in-nate talent makes her a most worthy recipient of the ELF.” Brown established the award to give a full schol-arship to a TCU student who demonstrates academ-icexcellenceandsignificantpotentialasafictionwriter. The writing center is very proud of Kelli’s ac-complishments thus far and is very proud to have her on this year’s peer consultant staff.

In order to better deal with the increasing numbers of students from the Neeley School of Business and the Brite Divinity School, the Center for Writing has partnered with these schools to provide tutoring inspecificdisciplines.Beginninginthespringof2008, the center opened a writing center annex in the writing center for Professional Communication tospecificallyaidbusinessstudentswiththeirwrit-ing projects and reports. In addition, the writing center works with new MBA students each semester to help them identify strengths and weaknesses in their business writing so they can improve their writing skills. A similar writing assessment is conducted with new students at the Brite Divinity School each year. Dr. Sherwood, director of the writing center, has trained the tutors for these programs and the center, the Neeley School of Business, and the Brite Divin-ity School share the costs of employing the tutors. Cheryl Carithers, assistant director of the writing center, also met with the faculty of the Harris Col-lege of Nursing and Health Sciences in mid-August in order to begin planning ways to better assist nursing students with their writing assignments.

Campus Partnerships

Kelli Trapnell accepts her Excellence in Literary Fiction Scholarship award from award-winning author and Texas Christian University alumna Sandra Brown.

Make an appointment online—it’s easy as 1, 2, 3!

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Go to www.wrt.tcu.edu and click on the link on the homepage.

Select the date, time, location, and staff member for your appointment!

Log in or register if you have never used the online service before.

Since the early 1990s, the Department of English and the Center for Writing have jointly coordinated and conducted TCU’s annual creative writing con-tests. This year, the Center for Writing staff members will assist the Department of English with the administration of the writing contests and program.

More than twenty contests are open to TCU students, including contests for prose, poetry,fiction,anddrama. A complete list of con-tests and details about sub-missions will be available in the Department of English and in the Center for Writing in late September. The winners of these contests receive nearly $3,000 in prizes, and selec-tions from the winning

entries will be published in the 2010 Creative Writing Publication. It is a great honor to receive one of these awards. Please remind your students of these excellent opportunities to have their work published and to be recognized for their writing.

Writing ContestsThe Center for Writing conducts a series of workshops throughout the year. These work-shopswilladdressspecificissuesrelatedtowrit-ing and the evaluation of writing. Unless otherwise noted, all workshops will last about an hour and will be conducted in the CenterforWritingmainofficeinRoom244ofthe Rickel Building. Specificworkshopdates will be announced on the Center for Writ-ing website. Examples of some workshop topics the center has covered before are the following:

• APA and MLA documentation styles

• Preparation for the Grammar, Spelling, and Punctuation test for the Journalism Department

• Taking essay exams• Writing résumés and cover letters• Creative writing • Aacademic publishing

Writing Workshops

Main OfficeRickel Building, Room 244

Monday through Friday:8am–5pm

817-257-7221

Library AnnexMonday through Friday:

2pm–5pm

Sunday through Thursday:6pm–9pm

817-257-6520

www.wrt.tcu.edu