The Writing Center

Ferris State’s Writing Center understands writing to be a fundamental foundation for an educated citizenry and an essential part of the intellectual life of a university. And as digital technology continues to expand in an ever-growing and interrelated global world, writing is a vital tool for strengthening and advancing communication and knowledge. In such a world, Ferris State’s Writing Center understands writing to be a social function, where written genres, textual mediums, and styles are continuously shifting and evolving based on the communities that produce such texts. With this understanding, Ferris State’s Writing Center is dedicated to fostering an intellectual understanding of writing while promoting academic excellence. In so doing, the Writing Center is a central site for literacy instruction, where we provide assistance and insight for writers who are enrolled in all disciplines, who come from all social and cultural backgrounds, who are members of all local and global communities, and who display all ranges of writing and intellectual capabilities.

To carry out our philosophy and mission, the writing center values and is committed to the following beliefs: 

We believe writing to be a recursive act that involves multiple steps, where we will serve all writers with generating initial ideas, organizing such ideas, and developing multiple drafts—where we will continue to work with all writers to revise, rewrite, and edit their writing into excellent and final products. We believe in recruiting consultants from all disciplinary backgrounds, who always value diversity, equity, equality, and fairness. We believe that writers evolve best when understanding the characteristics of the genres they’re writing in (and the disciplines that produce such genres), where writers work to understand the vocabulary, style, layout/format, audience, and purpose of such genres.We believe that all Ferris State students and community members are entitled to free writing consultation services.We believe in a non-directive approach to writing consultation, where writers always maintain ownership of their texts; writing consultants serve as an outside reader and audience rather than editors and proofreaders. We believe in being sensitive to all writers and their abilities, where we will always focus our efforts on building and ensuring confidence in writing. We believe in offering a space that is welcoming, accessible, and comfortable for all writers to work within.We believe in working with students who are multilingual and multi-dialectical, where we will always value and understand the vital importance between language, culture, and identity; with this acknowledgment, we will work toward balancing students’ right to their own language and usage while offering creative insight into the nuances of linguistic and often tacit demands embedded in academic genres.We believe in the privacy of our clientele, where we will always respect confidentiality and never disclose personal information; we will never ask for any personal information from our clientele. We believe in doing yearly assessment to ensure that our consultation outcomes continue to evolve and grow.

Before every writing consultation visit, our consultants will make certain that clients/student writers are the guiding force of the visit. In other words, it is our duty to listen to the concerns of the clients/student writers, where it is these concerns that will frame each writing consultation visit. Through such framing, and after each writing consultation visit, clients/student writers should be knowledgeable and aware of the following:

1. Apply a sense of rhetorical awareness by identifying the rhetorical situation of the text
   • Students should understand the characteristics of the written genre and how such knowledge influences writerly choices.
   • Students should know the exigence and / or purpose of their writing and how such knowledge influences writerly choices.
   • Students should know who their audience is and how such knowledge influences writerly choices.
2.  Apply self-guided revision practices
   • Students should understand that revising is not just “correcting mistakes”
   • Students should be able to articulate and map out a plan of action to advance their writing, which includes an understanding of exigence, audience, genre.
3. Apply an understanding of what has been learned throughout the consultation visit
   • Students should be able to articulate and paraphrase key concepts that are being learned throughout the consultation visit.