About Us

The Writing Center's Mission and Goals

Our Mission 

Our primary mission is to help MSU Denver students become more confident writers by developing healthy writing processes and a broad repertoire of writing strategies. We also support MSU Denver faculty, alumni, and community members who want to become more confident writers. 

 

Our Goals

• Welcome all MSU Denver writers, writing at any level, and any stage, in any discipline, and composing any genre. 
• Promote writing as a thinking tool. 
• Recognize language and writing as sites of institutionalized racism, patriarchy, and other forms of oppression, and contribute to the deconstruction of these oppressive systems. 
• Deepen students’ understanding of how they learn best.
• Help writers develop transferable writing skills, including drafting, revising, editing, content development, and source use, through metacognitive reflection. 
• Help students understand and negotiate expectations for academic, professional and disciplinary writing. 
• Foster understanding and acceptance of diverse identities, cultures, viewpoints, and linguistic backgrounds.
• Support instructors in developing writing assignments that are informed by current writing theory and research and reflect an inclusive, anit-racist lens.
• Encourage, support, sponsor and participate in writing research.
• Practice methods and strategies informed by current theory and research. 
• Mentor undergraduate writing consultants and interns.

 

Outcomes

By working with the Writing Center, students can expect to… 

• Use writing as a thinking and communication tool.
• Recognize that every piece of writing has a purpose and an audience. 
• Use multiple revision strategies at various points in their writing process.
• Use resources appropriately.
• Use invention strategies as part of their writing process. 
• Make appropriate rhetorical choices about thesis, development, organization, and style by considering the purpose and audience of a piece of writing. 
• Demonstrate a growth mindset toward writing.
• Advocate for the use of their own voice in writing assignments. 
• Demonstrate that they understand that writing is a process.

The Singular They

At the MSU Denver Writing Center, we support the use of the singular they. Our faculty and students’ pronoun preferences matter, and we’ll always support their identities. 

The Modern Language Association has recently weighed in on the use of “they” as a singular pronoun. Check out the article on the singular they here!

Client Testimonial

Real Writing Center Experiences

“[…] You may remember assisting a rather unhappy faculty member who was distressed by comments and revisions on a doctoral proposal manuscript. I thought you would like an update on my progress. After meeting with you, I felt more confident in my abilities and was able to read the Reviewer comments with a less sensitive frame of mind. I made revisions as I thought needed and looked for the few small things you had pointed out. When I turned in the final manuscript I was more confident that I had done it right, and the feedback bore that out. I had very few minor revisions, and the reviewer even complimented me throughout the manuscript. At this time I am waiting for confirmation from my program that the final revisions were sufficient. Thank you!”   ~ Deborah A. Mathias MSN, RN

Support The Writing Center

There are several ways you can support the Writing Center:

• Come in and see us!
• Talk about us to your students, friends, and colleagues.
• Give us a testimonial.
• Make a financial gift.