On the day of your appointment, please come to the Writing Center (BL Fisher Library, First Floor). Bring the following with you:
A copy of the essay you want help with. It is fine to bring a laptop, if you prefer to look at your paper on the computer
A copy of your syllabus
The instructions for the assignment
Specific questions - remember, we won’t be able to cover everything in your paper in one session, so if you come with specific questions, it will help your consultant provide more targeted help
Announcement:
Face-to-Face appointments are now available again! Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we still encourage the use of email and Zoom appointments as much as possible, but we have re-opened the Writing Center for in-person assistance for those wishing to meet with a consultant face-to-face.
Due to the need to maintain adequate social distance in the Writing Center space, the number of face-to-face appointments will be limited. Walk-ins will not be permitted. Requests for face-to-face appointments should be sent to writing.center@asburyseminary.edu. Those seeking face-to-face appointments are encouraged to go ahead and schedule a Zoom appointment to guarantee that a time slot is available at their preferred time.
Questions about Writing Center services should be directed to writing.center@asburyseminary.edu.
Canvas-Based Writing Course
The Writing Center is happy to announce that we are now offering a Canvas-based, self-guided tutorial for students who want or need more in-depth help than a one-hour consultation. This tutorial is available to all currently-enrolled Asbury Theological Seminary students, free of charge. It is designed around the concept of guided revision, where you will be guided through the stages of the Writing Process for a paper you're working on, with regular feedback from Writing Center staff.
If you're interested in signing up for this tutorial, or if you have questions and would like to know more about it, please contact us at writing.center@asburyseminary.edu or stop in and visit us in the Writing Center.
To make an appointment with the Writing Center:
PLEASE NOTE: In an average 60-minute session, we can adequately cover approximately 15 pages double-spaced (7 single-spaced). If your paper is significantly longer than that, please plan ahead and sign up for another appointment on a subsequent day. Unless special permission has been requested by emailing writing.center@asburyseminary.edu, clients are limited to one session per day.
What type of appointment do I need?
We have three different types of appointments available:
Writing Center Policies*
Appointments may be made no more than two weeks in advance.
Clients should sign up for no more than one (1) consultation per day and two (2) per week.
Requests for additional consultations may be submitted to writing.center@asburyseminary.edu. These requests will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, depending on the nature of the assignment, the length of the paper, and the availability of consultants.
The Writing Center reserves the right to cancel appointments in excess of these limits.
Dissertations
The Writing Center is happy to consult with clients on dissertations, including on issues relating to formatting. However, due to the length and complexity of most dissertations, as well as the nature of writing consultation, we are not able to accept whole dissertations for review.
Because the mission of the Writing Center is to help students grow in their writing skills, a successful consultation ends with the client taking our suggestions and using them to revise existing content and develop new content. This is true whether the client is writing a five-page reflection paper or a dissertation.
Consequently, we recommend scheduling consultations throughout the dissertation process. Depending on the length of each chapter and the type of questions, multiple visits per chapter will likely be needed, with time in between for revising based on the recommendations provided by the consultant.
In a typical 60-minute consultation, the Writing Center can adequately cover approximately 16 double-spaced pages (8 pages single-spaced). If an essay is longer than that, clients should plan to make multiple appointments across different days.
Back-to-back appointments or multiple appointments during the same day are not permitted, as research has shown that the effectiveness of the consultation process begins to drop after an hour. It is important for both client and consultant that sessions be limited to one hour.
*Pending final approvals