Mission Statement and Policies

The Writing and Communication Center's

Mission

The Center has always been a place for individualized instruction. We treat writing as a process. We emphasize accuracy, clarity, and concision. We promote the techniques of good writing.

Since its inception in the spring of 1982, the Center has had an eight-point philosophy of instruction:

1. To teach clients ways to improve their writing abilities. We do not proofread or edit; we work with clients to help them learn more about writing.

2. To provide a non-threatening, non-graded environment in which anyone may talk about any aspect of writing or oral presentation.

3. To focus upon the clients and their writing skills rather than merely upon the particular papers they have written -- in other words, to teach writing rather than to proofread or edit papers.

4. To provide flexible instruction while working individually with clients, thus responding efficiently and economically to each client's particular problems.

5. To experiment with various teaching techniques and programs in order to select the correct approach for each client.

6. To demystify the process of writing by showing clients that there are techniques for developing ideas, organizing papers, and for smoothly integrating evidence and data into a paper.

7. To encourage clients to think about the process of writing and their readers' expectations and needs, as well as about the content and style of their papers.

8. To use clients' papers, proposals, reports, abstracts, letters, and theses as a starting point for discussing writing techniques.

Services and Policies

The Writing and Communication Center offers free services to all members of the MIT community during the academic year. Its main site is in building 12-132.

Every year hundreds of MIT undergraduate and graduate students, staff and faculty members, spouses and alumni/ae come to the Center for individual consultations about any writing difficulty, from questions about grammar to matters of style. Native speakers and nonnative speakers of English visit the Center regularly. Some professors ask their best writers to come to the Center to fine-tune their style or organizational skills.

Whatever your skill level or confidence level, the Center can help you improve your skills as a writer and speaker.

FAQs

What kind of help can I find at the Center?

You may consult the Center's staff about all types of writing, including but not limited to:

• papers written for any MIT course (including Communication Intensive courses)
• papers written for courses at other universities
• undergraduate theses
• graduate theses
• scientific writing
• resumes
• essays for graduate school applications
• business and professional letters
• fiction
• poetry
• personal essays
• articles for publication
• proposals.

You may visit the Center during any stage of the writing process: prewriting (generating and exploring ideas), writing a first draft, revising a draft, or editing. You may consult the Center before submitting a paper for a grade or after receiving a graded paper that you would like to revise. Some of the more common problems are: overcoming writer's block, organizing papers, taking essay exams, revising one's work, documenting sources, analyzing a writing assignment, and presenting scientific information.