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The Macquarie University Writing Skills Program can help you with your writing problems in several ways. We offer several services throughout the year, all free of charge to undergraduate students. Although the program targets undergraduate writing experiences, postgraduate students are welcome to enquire about our services and can usually be accommodated, depending on the level of demand from undergraduates.

1. An introductory essay writing seminar will be held in the Macquarie Theatre W5B on Friday 22 February 2008 2:00pm-5:00pm, repeated on Saturday 23 February 2008 1:30pm-4:30pm Notes are now available online.


2. Two short courses in Writing Skills will be offered in each semester, in semester weeks 5 - 9 inclusive. The courses are designed to enhance the writing ability of students of all disciplines and cover many aspects of undergraduate writing, from matters of planning and organisation to details of expression. They operate through small workshop-style classes of fifteen to twenty students, each class lasting one and a half hours per week, with time for both discussion and the practice of writing techniques.
   
   Each course will deal with certain specific areas of writing (see Courses 1 and 2 below). Students are invited to enrol in either or both according to their needs and their timetables. Students who are unsure about which course(s) would best suit their needs should contact Sue Spinks.

   
   Course 1 (weeks 5 - 9 of semester 2), Sign up from 19 August 2008 building C5A Level 5 Foyer

   
   Academic Writing: Strategies and Structures:
   organisation of essays, reports and other written assignments: devising thematic answer to the topic; structuring material in support of your themes; exposition and argument; use of paragraphing; references, plagiarism and the use of sources.
   

   
   Course 2 (weeks 5 - 9 of semester 2),

   Sign up from 19 August 2008 building C5A Level 5 Foyer
   

   Academic Writing: Expression:
   issues of grammar and expression: word choice; sentence formation; cohesion within the sentence and paragraph; punctuation.
   
   

1st Semester		Second Semester
Course 1	Mid Year	Course 1
Course 2	Exams	Course 2
weeks 5 - 9		Weeks 5 - 9

Enrolments for both Courses in first semester will open in week beginning 11th March, and for second semester in week beginning 19th August. The times of classes and enrolment lists for each course will be posted on the Linguistics notice board C5A level 5, (phone 9850 8740). Students enrol by writing their name on the relevant enrolment list. As they enrol, students are invited to leave at the office a sample of their writing (in the form of an essay or report already submitted in any Macquarie University unit), so as to give their tutors advance notice of their strengths and weaknesses as writers.


3. A Writing Skills Advisory Service operates throughout the academic year.
   Students who want individual help with essay writing can make an appointment to see a writing skills adviser by contacting the Centre for Open Education in building X5B (ph. 9850 7470). Phone tutorials can be negotiated if students cannot attend during the relevant hours. We can also organise phone tutorials for evening and external students.
   
   Students should lodge a copy of an essay, or essays, preferably at least a week before their appointment. This should be a marked essay, as the service is meant to help you work through problems identified by your discipline tutors, not to help you draft an essay for assessment.
   
   We do NOT act as an editing service to correct your draft essays before you hand them in. If you want to discuss an essay in progress with a writing skills adviser, it can only be in very general terms: an analysis of the question; a discussion of your proposition, or a look at your essay plan.
   
   FOR APPOINTMENTS PLEASE CONTACT:

Centre for Open Education, Building X5B,
ph: 9850 7470

(All other enquiries to Sue Spinks)

4. In second semester each year, the Linguistics Department offers, at 200 level, a ‘general education’ unit covering various issues to do with formal writing practice. This 4 credit point unit, Ling253 (The English Language), is convened and taught by members of the Macquarie Writing Skills team. Its objectives are: a) to foster critical attitudes to written communication, and b) to help students to harness the resources of language as a means to improving their own writing.
   
   It is highly recommended for students who want to further develop their intuitions both about their own writing and about the writing of others, particularly those who will need to write at a professional level in the future and/or oversee the development of such writing in others. The prerequisite is 12 credit points in anything; no previous study of linguistics is necessary.

For all enquiries about the Writing Skills Program or Ling253 please contact:

Linguistics Undergraduate Office
Department of Linguistics
Building C5A, Room 508
Macquarie University
Balaclava Road
NSW 2109
Australia

Email: lingadmin@ling.mq.edu.au
Phone: +61 2 9850-8740
Fax: +61 2 9850 9199

Map

OR

Sue Spinks
Undergraduate Co-Ordinator
Department of Linguistics
Building C5A, Room 531
Macquarie University
NSW 2109
Australia

Email: Sue.Spinks@ling.mq.edu.au
Telephone: +61 2 9850 8770
Fax: +61 2 9850 9199

 

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