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Online Writing Labs: You have One Available for You
There are numerous colleges and universities around the United States and the world that offer online writing labs.
The labs are designed to offer help and instruction for any writing matter. Most Online writing labs are only
available to the students of the offering college or university, but there are a few that are open to the general
public. Virginia Tech has an online self help section and email help available for questions you have about
grammar.
The online writing labs are beneficial to both the writer in need of the help and the person helping them. The
helper or tutors are usually graduate students working for their degree they benefit from the additional teaching
practice. The students are getting proofreading, critiquing, and feedback along with any help they may need.
The online writing labs were created by the schools to offer extra help to their students in their writing. They
offer support in most areas of writing including choosing a topic, grammar help, revising a draft, and editing.
They provide tutored help in these areas to students and faculty. Many online writing labs are set up to help you
in three ways; online self help, email support, and one on one personal support.
The online self help applications are available 24 hours a day. For the email support you email in your paper or
project and you will receive a response with in 24 hours. The one on one personal support is a great way for
students to learn how to do their own proofreading and editing. The tutors will help show the students what to look
for and how to find their own mistakes. This is a great opportunity for help with someone other than a teacher.
Even though the online help is available student are encouraged to use the writing lab tutors on a regular basis to
improve their writing skills.
Purdue University has an online writing lab they call OWL. It offers a wealth of information that virtually anyone
can use. They offer a highly detailed step by step instruct of the writing process and huge section on
professional, technical, and scientific writing. A section in job search writing that walks you through everything,
from your academic coversheet to writing a personal statement, step by step. General Academic writing and research
and citation help. This is the best site for offering its advice absolutely free. This site definitely deserves to
be bookmarked on your computer if you are a serious writer, a student, a teacher, it really doesn’t matter.
The University of Richmond has a program they call Writing Center. Although not as complex as Perdue’s they offer
online self help topics for writers. Starting with the writing process to grammar and punctuation, it is another
option for you. The University of Wisconsin has the Writing Center that offers some help with the basics.
One thing to keep in mind that many of the universities and colleges that offer these many take them offline in
between semesters and on breaks. If you are a student, many of you have an online writing lab available at your
school or one that reciprocates with your school. Though the general public have self help online help available to
them, chances are your school will offer some sort of one on one help to guide you through your work. Check it out
it could be very beneficial to you. If you don’t have one available, it is highly recommend checking out OWL at
Perdue or search the Internet. There are a lot of self-help online writing labs available to you.
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