Writing Center

Welcome to the Coastline Writing Center (CWC)

At the Writing Center, we help you strengthen your writing and communication skills by providing resources, workshops, and individual support for all kinds of assignments and projects that require writing for all your Coastline courses.

When you click "Enter the Writing Center," you will:

1. Log in to Canvas
2. View a page where you can enroll in the free Writing Center Canvas shell (CCNB - 080N)
3. Be able to access our drop-in hours and learning activities

Enter the Writing Center

Hours

Hours for all Coastline students:

• Monday-Thursday: See Canvas Shell for up-to-date Drop-in Hours
• Friday: Closed
• Saturday-Sunday: Closed

Individual Support Online

The heart of the Writing Center is the one-on-one consultation. Writers from all disciplines and levels are welcome to drop-in with one of our Writing Center Instructors who can help at any stage of the process - from idea, to draft, to revision. You'll begin your free online consultation (up to 30-minutes) by identifying goals for the session. You may want to focus on:

• Feedback on a specific area of an essay
• Developing a thesis
• Clarifying ideas
• Structuring an argument
• Strengthening specific paragraphs or sentences
• Using academic databases and internet to identify credible sources
• Understanding and using the MLA Style Guide

Once your goals are clear, you and the Writing Center Instructor will work together to explore possibilities. Although collaborative, at no time does the Writing Center Instructor take over authorship of your work. Many writers come in just to explore their ideas with an attentive, sympathetic audience.

If this is your first visit to the Writing Center, be sure to read What to Expect in Consultation Guidelines.

• Consultation Guidelines

  What to Expect

  Make the Most of Your CWC Consultation

  Excelling in written and oral communication is hard work, but it can be fun and rewarding. We look forward to working with you!

  Your Responsibilities

  • Plan ahead. After joining the Writing Center, review the Writing Center Instructors' availability. Make sure to drop in during a time when a Writing Center Instructor is working.
  • Bring the assignment you are working on or a sample of your writing. Come with any relevant materials - assignment sheets, notes, rough drafts, outline, visual aids, etc.
  • Take an active role. Think over particular writing or communication problems you encounter and let the consultant know what concerns you most.

  What You Can Expect from the CWC

  Individual help with your writing or oral communication questions - performance anxiety, writer's block, research methods, organization, revision strategies, proper format, etc.

  Assistance at any stage, from generating ideas to polishing a final project, and any type of writing assignment.

  Guidance in building and improving your own writing, editing, and revising skills.

  What You Cannot Expect from the CWC

  An editing service where you sit back and relax while a consultant does the writing or organizes your draft for you. We want to help you work independently to become your own best editor.

  Omniscient and infallible consultants; however, what we don't know, we'll try to find out.

  A perfect paper or project. One session is not enough time to address every problem or issue. The real goal of the consultation is to help you become a better writer, communicator, and problem-solver, a process that happens gradually.