Writing CenterWelcome! The URI Writing Center is open and free to all members of the University of Rhode Island community and is available to all writers, all levels, all disciplines -- at all stages of writing! Any student may bring any piece of writing at any stage to the Writing Center for feedback for free. Among other options, we can help you:

Working in a group for your class or organization project? Bring the whole group and come talk with us! Whether you are in a group or by yourself, a native English speaker or an international student, working online or with printed texts... just bring your assignment and any work you've done so far and we'll work with you! Contact us at the Academic Enhancement Center today!

College Writing Program

Unless otherwise stated, our hours are:
Monday - Thursday: 10:00 am to 10:00 pm
Friday: 10:00 am to 1:00 pm
Sunday:  4:00 pm to 8:00 pm
Check the Academic Enhancement Center homepage
for any changes in hours of operation.

How to get the most from your visits to the URI Writing Center

Successful students often make the most of the resources available to them - including the Writing Center. Here are some tips you might want to try for yourself.

Bring all the materials for your assignment to the tutorial. Be sure to bring the assignment description and any work you've done on it so far. The more we know about the context of your work, the more we can help you make good choices.

Come ready to work. Writing Center tutorials are most effective when you practice your writing with a tutor - regardless of the focus of your session. If you want to work on your introduction and conclusion, come ready to write and revise those paragraphs. If you want help proofreading, know that we will teach you how to do it, but we won't do it for you (that wouldn't do much good in the long run, would it?). By the time you leave, you'll have some strategies daling with certain issues yourself.

Have an open mind. Different readers, and different tutors, have different kinds of suggestions. Listen to them, consider them, and then choose the advice that makes the most sense to you for the project at hand.

Set a realistic agenda. At the beginning of each tutorial, tutors will ask you what you hope to accomplish in time together. Because each session is limited to 30 minutes, your goals should be appropriate to that time frame. We will be able to work with you on one or two major concepts per session. Remember, you can always come back for more!

Work Writing Center visits into your course schedule or routine. At the beginning of the semester, check to see which of your courses require writing projects. Once the writing project has been assigned, pace your visits to the Center to assure you get all the feedback you need. In other words, you may want to come once to talk about the assignment and brainstorm for ideas, and later you might return with a paper draft to see if you are developing your ideas fully enough. Another visit might entail talking about the overall organization of your writing project, while a final visit might tackle some proofreading strategies.

Return for more later. Each time you work with us, we'll offer different strategies for responding to different situations in your writing. If one strategy doesn't work for you, we'll try another. Our goal is to give each writer appropriate feedback and strategies for dealing with similar issues in the future. Sometimes this takes time, and it takes effort on the part of tutors and students alike. If you come ready to work, we should be able to send you away with at least one strategy that works for you.