The Writing Centre works with all UWI staff and students to help them develop and strengthen their written and oral communication skills. Staffed by experienced and trained coaches, the Writing Centre offers a wide variety of services from editing and proofreading to oral presentations and one-to-one tutoring sessions. In free individual or group consultations, the Writing Centre fosters a healthy teaching and learning environment that supports staff and students from all disciplines across the St. Augustine Campus.  

The aims of The Writing Centre are:

  1. to enhance the critical thinking and written expression skills of students and staff of the University of the West Indies
  2. to meet the standards of formal academic expression – precision, clarity, conciseness, accuracy, and elegance;
  3. to develop clients’ ability to plan, organise, write and revise academic papers;
  4. to help clients discover their strengths and the challenges they face as writers 
  5. to increase clients’ confidence in writing
  6. to engage faculty from all disciplines on campus in a dialogue about teaching writing to gradually shift classroom practices from purely content-based instruction towards content /rhetoric–based instruction
  7. to sensitise the academic community about the benefits of Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) programmes
  8. to contribute to higher standards of writing and of academic achievement, in all faculties of The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine.

Writing Centre History

In 2007, the first Dean of FHE, Professor Ian Robertson, oversaw the birth of the Writing Centre alongside the then, English Language Foundation Coordinator, Tyrone Ali. The purpose of the Writing Centre is to support the development of academic writing skills across the campus. The Writing Centre coordinators, who work toward this purpose, have been Tyrone Ali from 2007 to 2009, Dionyse McTair from 2009 to 2014, Janine Horsford from 2014 to 2015, Janique Dennis-Prescott from 2015 to 2023, and Melanie Pouchet is the present coordinator for the Writing Centre. 

Writing Centre Days and Hours

  1. Location

    • We are located on the Third Floor, of the Faculty of Humanities and Education (FHE) Building.
    • Face-to-face classes are conducted in Room 302, third floor, FHE South Block. 

  2. Scheduling an Appointment

We offer

  1. One-on-one or small group coaching sessions with a Writing Coach
  2. Writing weakness diagnosis
  3. Writing skills improvement along all stages of the writing process
  4. Virtual resources for brainstorming, planning, writing, formatting, editing, and proofreading

Why choose the Centre

  1. We help you to select the most appropriate mode of writing for specific purposes, contexts and audiences
  2. We work with you in brainstorming sessions and get started on written assignments
  3. We help you to organise the rough draft of an academic paper
  4. We edit and revise the academic paper
  5. We locate and correct errors in grammar, punctuation and word choice
  6. We aim to avoid plagiarism
  7. We encourage the use of acceptable international conventions for formatting, referencing and documentation in academic writing

Facilities and Resources

  1. Online coaching and virtual resources via myeLearning 
  2. The Writing Centre Lab (set to re-open for Semester 1 2023/2024)

Staff 

The Writing Centre is staffed by Specialist Coaches. We choose from our highly skilled team of coaches each semester. All coaches have had extensive training and experience in their areas including technical facilitation and management, teaching academic writing, and conducting formative and summative evaluations of written assignments.

Contact Information

Melanie Pouchet
Coordinator, The Writing Centre

FHE building, ground floor
Room 11
Telephone: 662-2002, Ext. 82521
E-mail: thewritingcentre@sta.uwi.edu

 

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