At the Writing Center, we believe that supporting our students includes supporting our faculty!
Use the drop-down menu below to learn more about our faculty resources. You can send any questions to onlinelrc@csun.edu.
In-Class Visits and Special Workshops
We would love to make a presentation to your class about a particular topic, or about Writing Center services in general! Past topics have included:
- The writing process with a timeline for the particular assignment
- Peer review session
- APA or MLA format
- Literature Review
- Scholarship essays
- Personal statements for grad school applications
To arrange a visit, email lrc@csun.edu. Please note that we cannot be a substitute for you; professors must be in attendance during a Writing Center visit or workshop.
Borrow-A-Tutor
Would you like some extra help during synchronous class meetings or activities, such as workshops or breakout groups? We can send someone trained, knowledgeable, and ready to work with you in your virtual classroom. Let us know what you need, and we’ll pair you with the right tutor.
To find out more or to request a tutor, email us at lrc@csun.edu. Please note that we cannot be a substitute for you; professors must be in attendance during visits from a tutor.
Faculty Development - Transparent Assignment Design
Starting September 15, join the LRC in collaboration with Faculty Development for our five-part series as we work toward creating more transparent prompts and rubrics, and more effective collaborations between instructors and the Writing Center to help address student writing improvement across the disciplines and at all levels. Faculty who complete the sequence will earn a stipend. There are still spots available!
Prompt Feedback
Whether you're teaching face-to-face or virtually, it's not as easy to explain prompts or revise for transparency. If you submit your prompts via this link, we will have our Peer Writing Specialists give you feedback to improve clarity, transparency, and accessibility from a student's point of view. Professors who have used this service tell us they plan to use it for all prompts going forward as the feedback has saved students (and them) a great deal of time and confusion. We also welcome syllabi and other course documents.
Proof of Writing Center Conferences and Writing Workshop Attendance
Do you assign credit for Writing Center visits? We can provide proof of attendance for your students who come to our consultation sessions and writing workshops!
When students attend a workshop or session with us, instructors will receive a link to an Excel spreadsheet on Box via email that will contain information from the session including notes about the session from the writing consultant. This spreadsheet will be updated on a weekly basis, at the end of the week.
We ask that instructors remind their students that they must ask for proof of attendance for each session they attend, otherwise our staff will not know to send it to you. At this time, we can only provide proof of attendance via email to the professor, not to students directly. Thank you for understanding.
Help the Writing Center prepare for your students!
To help prepare our writing consultants to prepare to work with your students, we encourage you to submit your prompts, rubrics, examples of strong work, and any other course documents that might help us better serve your students. Having a better understanding of what you expect on these assignments will help our tutors help your students.
You can upload files directly through this form. Files uploaded here will not be shared outside of our tutoring staff, and will be used for training purposes only.
Have questions? Please email us at onlinelrc@csun.edu.
Including the LRC on your Canvas page
You have several options for including the LRC on your course Canvas page.
Link to the LRC's webpage by providing the url: https://www.csun.edu/undergraduate-studies/learning-resource-center OR https://tinyurl.com/csunlrc
Canvas Page: Add just the LRC's information page to your course's Canvas by searching the commons for "CSUN LRC"
Canvas Module:
Import the LRC Module!
Log in to canvas.csun.edu. From any page, click the Canvas Commons button.
Type csun lrc in the search bar. “Visit the Writing Center Online” will pop up. Click the name for the current semester's module.
Click the blue “Import/Download” button on the right side of the screen.
Check the box next to the course(s) you’d like to import the module into. Click the blue “Import to Course” button.
The course will appear on your “Modules.” If you have other content, this module will be at the bottom. You may need to publish the module so that students can see it.
Note: if you are teaching an undergraduate class, it might make sense to delete or unpublish the “Asynchronous Feedback for Grad Students” section (the last page).
Suggested Syllabus Information – Feel free to put this directly into your syllabus or adapt as necessary
LRC (general info):
Tutoring in multiple subjects, one-on-one help with writing and grammar, and reading and writing workshops are all available at the Learning Resource Center (LRC), which is located in the University Library, on the east wing of the third floor.
You may also view our workshop schedule at https://www.csun.edu/lrc/writing-workshops.
The University Writing Center & The Online Writing Lab
Our Peer Writing Specialists are graduate and undergraduate students with excellent writing skills, and are ready to empower students in 100-399 - level courses to become stronger, more confident writers! Our Faculty Writing Consultants have teaching experience and currently teach at CSUN in various departments, and are ready to work with students in 400-799 level courses and beyond. The tutors and consultants can help students from brainstorm to revision, and all the important steps in between - from conception to completion. They are also available to help out with personal statements, resumes, and more.
You can make a in-person or Zoom 45-minute appointment or attempt a drop-in session using EAB (see the tutorials on the main page).
The SMART Lab
The Science, Math, and Related Topics (SMART) Lab offers academic support to help students improve their academic performance. Subjects include accounting, biology, chemistry, economics, mathematics, physics, psychology, and statistics and others. The tutors are accomplished undergraduate and graduate students from a variety of university disciplines who are available to assist students on a walk-in and appointment basis. The SMART Lab is located in the University Library 3rd Floor, East Wing. The schedule can be found on the website: https://www.csun.edu/undergraduate-studies/learning-resource-center/science-math-and-related-topics-smart-lab.
Faculty FAQ's
What happens during a Writing Center conference?
Consultants work individually with students to help them communicate more clearly and effectively in writing. During the 30- to 60-minute appointment, a consultant typically:
- Helps students review the written assignment to be sure they are following instructions.
- Reads over the draft and asks questions to help students see where the work may be challenging to follow, unclear in expression, or in need of deeper development.
- Asks students what area in their paper they want to focus on (e.g., the organization, the clarity, a particularly troublesome part, the use of sources, addressing patterns of error, and so on).
- Instructs students on how different elements of the reading and/or writing process work.
- Works out strategies with the student for addressing concerns.
- Helps to develop a plan for action.
How can I encourage my students to visit the Writing Center?
There are many ways to encourage your students to use the Writing Center. You can recommend our services, mention us in your syllabus, give bonus points for meeting with a tutor, send students to our workshops, or require that all your students come to visit us. We do ask that you try and refrain from targeting particular students, however; tutoring gets a remedial wrap, but in reality, ALL writers benefit from talking through their ideas with others!
You can also make a Writing Center visit part of your assignment. If you decide to send your entire class, please encourage them to make an appointment well before the due date, as we may not be able to see a large number of students in the day or two before a paper is due.
Students may ask for proof of attendance to be sent to their instructors. Students should ask at the beginning of the appointment and be ready to provide the instructor's name and email address.
The most important thing you can do to help your students write better is to explain to them why effective writing matters, both to you and in your field of study. Thank you for your commitment to improving student writing at CSUN.
How should my students prepare for an appointment?
To make the most of the time:
- Encourage your students to come to see us at least 24 hours before the work is due.
- Let them know that rather than editing or proofreading, writing consultants teach about writing and help students to develop skills and strategies while also being critical readers that allow students to understand how their work is presented on the page or screen, and how it might be improved with further work. Students who visit us will to be asked to involve themselves in the process of strengthening their work.
- Remind students to have the prompt on hand as well as the draft.
- Help students understand that 30 to 60 minutes may not be enough time to discuss an entire assignment, especially if it is lengthy, but they can always come back!
- Email any material you would like us to have on file (rubric, prompt, etc. ) to onlinelrc@csun.edu.
What about help with exams?
When an assignment is labeled an "exam," a consultant will ask for written evidence that the student has professor permission to seek help on the paper. If you want your students to go over an exam in the Writing Center, it should be stated in the assignment that students can ask for outside help, or you can email to give permission: .
If there is explicit permission, consultants will work together with students to help them read the assignment with understanding, and improve the organization, development, and general clarity of the response. As always, consultants will not edit a paper for students as they sit by, but they can discuss patterns of error and ways to address those. Consultants will not give answers to questions, but may ask questions like, "What do you have in your notes?" or "How would you prove that to be true?" to help students brainstorm and organize a response.
What workshops do you offer?
Writing is a complex skill. It takes commitment, hard work, and time. If an individual student has the requisite motivation, he/she/they is/are very welcome to make weekly appointments. In conferences with the same consultant over the course of several weeks, the student can practice strategies for organizing, developing ideas with evidence, and proofreading. Taking time to revise with the help of a Writing Consultant can be a major step in improving writing skills. We have many students who find a consultant they enjoy working with, and take advantage of this opportunity to learn.
We also offer walk-in sessions when there is a consultant with an available time slot, which students are welcome to sign up for should they have already had an appointment that week. Walk-ins are subject to availability and are not guaranteed.
Does the Writing Center help grad students?
Yes. All the Writing Center's consultants can help grad students with their writing. They will not proofread for students, but they can work together with grad students on longer projects as well as class papers.
Please see the Graduate Students tab for our full list of programs specially designed with grad students in mind.
Where can I find out more about supporting student writing?
Here are some good resources for faculty. If you have a resource not listed here, please recommend it and we will add it.
This page offers advice on how instructors can best support the success of students who are multilingual. Advice includes teaching key vocabulary to making explicit the rhetoric of academic writing in a particular genre.
This page from our University shows deadlines and offers links to pdf’s on formatting guidelines for theses/dissertations/projects. It also links you to necessary guidelines for research on human/animal subjects.
This page defines what plagiarism is, why it happens, and how it can be effectively addressed.
Scroll down the page and you will see advice on this topic. Several different sources are linked here.
This page describes what it means to read as a common reader and discusses types of responses that may be given (facilitative, directive, corrective, evaluative).
