Mission Statement

The Writing Centre exists to help students improve written communication skills in English, in order to help them become independent, efficient and confident writers.

Objectives of the Writing Centre

Extending our welcome to students from all disciplines and academic levels, our Writing Centre is keen to proactively pursue the development of effective writing skills.

Advisors at the Writing Centre help students understand their topic, refine their ideas, organize and structure facts, identify spelling or grammatical errors and add a touch of polish to their written work. Students can bring both academic and nonacademic work to the centre. Advisors will help with a variety of written items, ranging from academic thesis and assignments to articles for newspapers and letters.

We believe that writing is a powerful tool not only for communicating existing ideas but also for discovering new ones. The methods used at the Writing Centre are multi-faceted, flexible, and above all, collaborative. All this reflects our respect for the individual writer, whose talents, voice and goals are central to all our endeavors. We try to generate and sustain "better writers" rather than "better writing".

We aim to offer students focused, extended, and personalized tutoring, and analyze their writing in respectful and knowledgeable ways so as to facilitate intellectual development.

The Writing Centre Library

• The Writing Center Director's Resource Book - Murphy. Stay
• Simon & Schuster -Handbook For Written - Troyka, Lynn Quitman
• Thinking It Through: A Practical Guide to Academic Essay Writing
• Teaching One to One: The Writing Conference -Muriel Harris
• Prentice Hall Reference Guide -Muriel Harris
• The Little Brown Handbook- Fowler, Aaron, McArthur
• A Canadian Writers Reference: 5th Edition- Bedford St Martins
• Annie of Green Gables- L. M Montgomery
• Breakthroughs- An Integrated Upper Intermediate English Program- McPherson and Engelkin
• Building Great Sentences- Brooks Landon
• Business Vocabulary In Use ( Elementary to Pre-Intermediate)- Bill Mascull ( 2 Books)
• Collection of Writing Material With Errors
• Grammar Material of Georgia
• Intermediate Stories for Reproduction - L.A Hill
• Map of Canada
• On Compiling An Annotated Bibliography - James Harner 2nd Edition
• Style- Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace
• That's very Canadian- Vi vian Bowers
• The Little Gift Book of Cannada
• The Spelling Teachers Lesson a Day ? Edward Fry, PhD
• Thinking It Through - Avery Etal
• They Say I Say- Gerald Birkenstein
• Trainers Handbook- Adrian Doff
• Technical Communication- Raman Sharma
• Vinyl Café Unplugged- Stuart McLean
• Business Etiquette- Shital Kakkar Mehra
• Technical Communication (2nd Edition) - Meenakshi Raman and Sangeetha Sharma
• Oxford Paperback Thesaurus (Indian Edition)
• Collins Easy Learning English Library
• Intermediate English Grammar- Raymond Murphy
• Intermediate English Grammar Supplementary Exercises - Louise Hashemi and Murphy
• Critical Thinking Skills - Stella Cottrell
• BEC - Preliminary and Vantage
• Painless Vocabulary- Barron
• 30 Days for a more Powerful Vocabulary- Dr. Wilfred Funk and Norman Lewis
• Painless Reading Comprehension- Darolyn Jones, M.S
• Sociolinguistics- Peter Trudgill
• Sociolinguistics - Carlo Papnini Scalingi
• Techniques and Principles in Language
• Advanced Communicative English
• Teaching - Diane Freeman

Note: These books are to be used only within the Student Support Services premises.

Writing sessions

We encourage students to book a session in advance at the Writing Centre to ensure that their work gets proper attention. However, students can also walk into the Centre at anytime as and when the need arises and see if a free slot is available with an Advisor.


Advisory sessions are scheduled for thirty to forty-five minutes each, with a three session series considered optimum. The Writing Centre tailor-makes each session so as to suit the individual student’s needs. Thus, the type of tutoring provided will vary from one session to another.


In general, the Writing Centre first helps students understand the assignment given to them. Then, we show them how the material that they have gathered should be organized in a clear, logical and systematic way. Further, irrelevant material must be omitted from the final assignment.
Finally, we help the student with sentence-level aid, enabling them to recognize grammatical and spelling mistakes.


We also aim to help each student recognize their own natural writing strengths and weaknesses so that each of these can be appropriately developed or addressed. During sessions, the Advisor gives the student many suggestions that the student can either accept or reject.


The Writing Centre does not offer editing or proofreading services; instead, we train students to do their own proofreading by learning to identify, correct and eventually avoid errors in their English writing.

Courses, Workshops, Seminars

In our desire to help persons improve their communication skills in English, the Writing Centre also hosts various workshops, courses and seminars as described below. The resource persons at each of these events are experts in their respective fields.

Courses:

The Writing Centre staff conducts Academic Writing Course for the First Year under graduate students and Research Writing Course for Second Year students.

Writing & Speaking Skills Courses

The Writing Centre conducts semester length courses on Writing and speaking skills at the MSc-IT programme at Chowgule College.

Workshops:

Grammar Made Easy

This workshop-series aims to help students with specific grammar related difficulties. We use easy and informal ways to learn grammar, without the "classroom method" of teaching. Students can join in on a topic of their need.

Essentials of Academic Writing

This workshop aims to guide students in writing assignments by handling topics such as brainstorming and research, structuring and bibliography.

Effective Written Communication

Poor written messages create confusion and misunderstanding. In this workshop, students are taught to understand the purpose, the audience, the message and the proper channel of written communication. Topics range from email etiquette to writing a press release.

Resume Building workshop

This workshop enables students build a modern, relevant and personalized resume as they prepare to move into the world of employment.

Bibliography & Avoiding Plagiarism

These workshops are designed to indicate academic honesty and excellence.

Various other custom-made workshops

The Writing Centre works actively with various academic departments in the College to produce custom-made workshops as and when required, to suit the particular needs of the respective department.

International & State Level Seminars for Teachers

Each academic year, we host International & state-level seminars for teachers, helping them work with students whose primary education has not been English. Eminent resource persons both International & National present innovative strategies and solutions to teaching challenges faced by faculty in educational institutions of post-secondary learning.

Other Activities

The Writing Centre also organizes various non-formal events with an aim to help students develop English communication skills in relaxed and easy settings.  Some of these are:

Just A Minute
This is a simple, easy and very interesting game, and is derived from a very popular event on BBC Radio of the same name. A fun activity, it basically requires an individual to speak on a topic without hesitation, repetition or deviation for one minute. The winner receives the rolling All India Fruit Trophy.

Scrabble
This popular word-building game has become a favourite at the Writing Centre, where it is regularly played, albeit with a few interesting twists.

Talk Time
This is an informal conversation group that meets to discuss a mutually chosen topic. The aim is to promote English speaking skills in the context of a small group.

Literary Film Festival
A range of award-winning literary films are screened, such as Charles Dickens’ classic ‘Oliver Twist’ and Michael Ondatje’s critically acclaimed ‘The English Patient’.

Guest resource persons

Each year, the Writing Centre invites and hosts eminent resource persons from known and established Writing Centre across the world.

Among these have been:

• Prof. Marie-Lise Blain, University of Ottawa, Canada
• Prof. Georgia Lyons, Nipissing University, Canada
• Prof. Robert Witmer, Sophia University, Japan
• Dr. Saori Sadoshima, Waseda University, Japan
• Prof. Tom Gally, Tokyo University, Japan
• Dr. Dee Broughton, University of Idaho, USA
• Prof. Marial Ellison,University of Porto, Portugal
• Prof. Christopher Gallagher, International Christian University, Japan

Department Faculties

Chelsea Fernandes

cmf000@chowgules.ac.in

PROFILE

Contact Us

Writing Centre,
Student Support Services,
Computer Science Block, Top Floor
Timing: 9:00am to 5:00pm, Monday to Saturday
Phone No: 0832-2722215
E-mail: writingcentre@chowgules.ac.in

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

Q. I have booked an appointment at the Writing Centre but cannot make it. What should I do?

A: Contact the Writing Centre and cancel the appointment so that someone else can be allotted the same slot. A student who has three No Show's(miss an appointment without notifying us) will not be allowed to use Writing Centre services till the end of that particular term.

Q. I want to get my work checked at the Writing Centre but don't have time for a session. Can I submit my work and request that it will be suitably edited for me?

A: The Writing Centre does not edit your work for you. It is vital that we help you examine your own work so that you can develop writing skills.

Q. What are the Writing Centre availability timings?

A:The Writing Centre is open 9:00am to 5:00pm, Monday to Saturday.

Q. I have to submit my assignment today; can I request an appointment this morning?

Answer: The Writing Centre recommends that you use our services as early as possible and that you do not come to us just before the last date for submission. The earlier you book a session, the better we can help you with your assignment. The Writing Centre will not accept appointments two days prior to the last date of submission.

Q. Do I have to pay for using Writing Centre sessions?

A: Sessions at the Writing Centre are free for bonafide students and staff of this institution.

Q. Is a single session sufficient for each assignment I bring to the writing centre?

A: In general we consider a series of three sessions as optimum per assignment. In session one we help you examine important larger order concerns issues such as structure and development of argument, in session two we help you develop self editing skills so that you can improve your grammar. In session three we help you to take a overall perspective of your assignment.

Q. How do I cite my sources?

A: There are various styles of referencing such as MLA, APA, and Chicago etc and the writing centre helps you cite the sources as required by your subject lecturer.

Q. I need help with formatting my resume can I ask help at the writing Centre?

A: Yes. Please bring all necessary details with you and we will help you to build a modern and well formatted resume.

Q. Can the writing centre help me improve my grammar skills?

A: Certainly! The writing centre has a monthly series of workshops called Grammar made Easy's; you can choose to participate in entire series or to just come to the particular one which you need help with.

Q. I would like to develop English conversation skills. How can the writing centre help me in this?

A: The writing centre conducts various fluency building activities such as conversation groups and speaking activities. Visit the Writing Centre for further details.

Q. I am struggling in getting my thoughts/material together on my assignment topic. How can the writing centre help?

A: Advisors at the writing centre will help you "brain-storm" (generate ideas) and give your assignment a proper structure.