The Writing Center at Southeastern: Changing the World One Writer at a Time
Welcome to the Writing Center at Southeastern! We are a staff of experienced writers and writing assistants who are happy to help you with any skill, strategy, and stage in the writing process. You may think of us as your personal writing assistants, offering help and feedback on your writing projects and available to help you become a more confident and competent writer, equipped to accomplish your educational goals. You may visit us on campus or at our web site.
Campus Site
We are located in the first-floor foyer of Stephens-Mackie Hall, rooms 125 and 128. Drop-in visits are welcome, but you will ensure that you do not have to wait when you make a half-hour or hour appointment at our
web site.
Hours: Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Web Site
Click here to enter our web site, make an appointment with a writing assistant, send us your paper via email for personalized feedback, download handouts on writing topics, and find many self-help resources about writing and research.
Mission
The Writing Center fosters a campus-wide culture of writing that plays a key role in how students and faculty members create and communicate knowledge within academic and ministerial settings for the glory of Jesus Christ.
What We Do
The Writing Center offers an educational service to seminary, college, and extension programs. Writing assistants work with writers individually and in small groups on such projects as essays, theses, dissertations, books, letters of application, articles, and other creative, personal, academic, and ministerial projects. In addition to serving as a friendly, thoughtful audience, writing assistants will answer any question a person would like to ask about the writing process.
Most often, writing assistants focus on generating ideas, organizing ideas, style, clarity, grammar, and documentation, but writing assistants will help writers work through any skill, strategy, and stage in the writing process:
- Invention (how to generate ideas, conduct research, and develop an argument)
- Drafting (how to outline and sketch preliminary ideas)
- Critique (how to assess content and find the thesis)
- Revision (how to focus on the thesis and develop the argument)
- Editing (how to write clearly, correctly, concisely, and often elegantly)
What We Don’t Do
As an educational service, we don’t “give Jack a fish,” but we do “help Jack learn how to fish,” meaning that we do not edit student papers; instead, we help students edit their own papers and become better editors. Likewise, at the global level, we do not provide content; instead, we help students find and develop their argument; structure and support it with reasons, evidence, and examples; and express it clearly, correctly, and occasionally elegantly.
Contact the Director
We hope your visit to the Writing Center at Southeastern is a pleasant, helpful, and enlightening experience. Please feel free to e-mail our director,
John Burkett, with your comments or suggestions. Whenever possible, we will use your feedback to improve the quality of the services we offer the Southeastern community. Although your comments will remain confidential, the director will gladly respond in a timely manner to students, faculty, or staff who offer feedback.
Win-Win
Visiting the Writing Center is a win-win situation because “you” will become a better writer and, as a result, will learn more (and earn higher grades) in your present courses and probably in all situations in which you use words to generate, organize, and communicate your ideas in a manner that glorifies the incarnate Word.
