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At UNCSA Writing Center and ESL Services, we assist high school, undergraduate and graduate student writers at every stage of the writing process, offering support that spans from topic selection to the drafting and revision stages, covering a wide range of writing projects such as,

Course papers/essays,
Artist statements,
Screenplays,
MFA thesis,
Essays for application (college, internship, grant, etc.),
Resume/CV/cover letter,
Professional emails,
Personal writings (poetry, novel or other fiction)

Writing Center Updates!

This Fall semester, we will have remote and in-person times available Sunday-Friday beginning January 13, 2025. There will be evening appointments (only online) as well as daytime appointments (online and in-person) available. All posted hours are subject to change without notice; check on the appointment calendar to book times and see available appointments.

We will be closed on the following days:

Monday, Jan 20 (all day)
Tuesday, Feb 11 (all day)
Saturday, March 1, and Sunday, March 9 (SPRING BREAK!)
Monday, April 7 (all day).

Note: Upon your requests, a few online-only appointments will be available during the break and when the office is closed!!

You can always check availability and/or make appointments using the link below.

► Make Appointments Here!

Co-Director Hadis Ghaedi will be available on campus and can meet with you in person or via Zoom. Nora Streed will continue to be available via Zoom only. Our office is located in the Teaching and Learning Center (above the library cafe) in room 2308.

For further information about the Writing Center at UNCSA, or to request alternative meeting times, send us an email at writingcenter@uncsa.edu.

Inclusive Language Resources

The PDF documents below contain some quick reference guides regarding inclusive language. Feel free to print and distribute them if you find them helpful. If you want to discuss inclusive language in your writing or other situations, please feel free to make an appointment to talk to Nora Streed. We're not here to police your writing for political correctness, but rather to help you use language to get your message across in the most accessible, inclusive, and respectful way possible.

Language Matters!
Nobody wants to walk on eggshells for fear that some innocent or well-intended remark will cause offense – or get them fired, or worse. Consider, however, that if you use language that can be considered offensive, cruel, demeaning, or thoughtless, you will very likely be seen as a person who is offensive, cruel, demeaning, and/or thoughtless.
A Brief Glossary
Sometimes it sounds like people are talking another language. This list provides quick definitions of some inclusive terminology you may not have heard used in a particular way before. It is not a list of mandatory substitutions for commonly understood terms, and it is not meant to be a complete list.

Writing Resources

Download PDFs with helpful information on the following topics:

Quick Writing Tips for Every Writer
A few tips to help you get started.
Proofreading Guide
Some helpful hints for more effective proofreading.
Tips for Writing Good Emails
Don't waste your time -- or your readers' time -- with poorly written emails.
The Formatter
By UNCSA School of Filmmaking Professor Joy Goodwin. This is an excellent resource for anyone who wants to format their screenplay properly. I for one can't wait for the movie :)
MFA Thesis Guide.
Please meet with someone in the Writing Center and/or the Library to discuss your thesis plans. We're here to help! This handout offers a quick overview of some common formatting conventions for certain types of thesis projects.

Helpful Links

UNC Chapel Hill's Writing Center's website has excellent, relevant, and helpful guides.
George Orwell's classic 1946 essay Politics and the English Language offers some simple strategies for making your own writing stronger, clearer, and more useful to your readers.
Purdue OWL is an excellent resource for MLA formatting guidelines and contains a great deal of high quality reference material.
UW-Madison Writer's Handbook is also another excellent source for not only all types of formatting guidlines such as MLA, APA, Chicago, etc but also instructions on ways to improve your writing style, writing process and structure, and academic and professiobal writing skills.
Grammar Rock videos are fabulous learning tools for basic grammar information. No, really. You might not be able to get the songs out of your head, but that's kind of the idea.
Merriam-Webster's online dictionary is easy to use and contains many helpful articles & videos about word use issues as well as a fun "Word of the Day" app and of course a fully functional online dictionary and thesaurus.
The Story of English. This PBS documentary from 1986 is available here on a YouTube playlist broken up into many 10-minute segments. The companion book is listed below. It's a very good overview of the history of the English language and its proliferation throughout the world. Helps sort out some of the confusion about why English is the way it is.
Free Language Learning Apps! All UNCSA students, staff, and faculty have access via NCLive to TRANSPARENT Language Learning Apps. Go at your own pace and learn one (or more!) of over 100 languages in the app, from Afrikaans to Dakota to Latvian to Quechua to Welsh and Zulu! Also includes English learning apps for non-native English speakers.

Recommended Reading and Reference Books

Actually, the Comma Goes Here by Lucy Cripps
ISBN: 9781647399221
Publication Date: 2020-06-02
Fun, funny, and factual--the most complete guide to punctuation for beginners and experts alike. Period. No one's ever said that learning punctuation is fun--until now. Actually, The Comma Goes Here takes a lighthearted yet highly informative approach to ensuring you never misplace a comma again. Whether it's semicolons or exclamation points, this primer has you covered with chapters that dive deep into the correct use for each and every piece of punctuation. You'll find plenty of fun (and funny) examples of proper writing while also learning how punctuation has changed throughout history. Actually, The Comma Goes Here includes: A complete crash course--Keep things simple with chapters that progress from the most basic punctuation (like periods) to more advanced or uncommon punctuation (like brackets). Memorable advice--Never mix your clauses up again thanks to easy-to-remember breakdowns, handy mnemonics, and entertaining sample sentences. Matters of style--Discover a quick reference chart that details the differences between the most common style guides, including the Chicago Manual of Style and Associated Press. Perfect your punctuation with the help of this comprehensive guidebook.
The English Grammar Workbook for Adults by Michael DiGiacomo
ISBN: 1646113195
Publication Date: 2020-06-02
While this book is aimed at English Language Learners, it’s a useful book for anyone who wants to improve their writing fluency and communicate more confidently in English. No matter your current skill level, this English grammar workbook has everything you need to learn essential elements, including nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, tenses, and beyond. Then, you'll apply what you've learned to exercises that reflect everyday situations you could encounter at school, at work, social situations, creative writing, online, and more.
I Have Something to Say by John Bowe
ISBN: 1400062101
Publication Date: 2020-08-11
A veteran journalist discovers an ancient system of speech techniques for overcoming the fear of public speaking--and reveals how they can profoundly change our lives. In 2010, award-winning journalist John Bowe learned that his cousin Bill, a longtime extreme recluse living in his parents' basement, had, at the age of fifty-nine, overcome a lifetime of shyness and isolation--and gotten happily married. Bill credited his turnaround to Toastmasters, the world's largest organization devoted to teaching the art of public speaking. Fascinated by the possibility that speech training could foster the kind of psychological well-being more commonly sought through psychiatric treatment, and intrigued by the notion that words can serve as medicine, Bowe set out to discover the origins of speech training--and to learn for himself how to speak better in public. From the birth of democracy in Ancient Greece until two centuries ago, education meant, in addition to reading and writing, years of learning specific, easily taught language techniques for interacting with others. Nowadays, absent such education, the average American speaks 16,000 to 20,000 words every day, but 74 percent of us suffer from speech anxiety. As he joins Toastmasters and learns, step-by-step, to successfully overcome his own speech anxiety, Bowe muses upon our record levels of loneliness, social isolation, and political divisiveness. What would it mean for Americans to learn once again the simple art of talking to one another? Bowe shows that learning to speak in public means more than giving a decent speech without nervousness (or a total meltdown). Learning to connect with others bestows upon us an enhanced sense of freedom, power, and belonging.
On Writing Well by William Zinsser
ISBN: 9780060891541
Publication Date: 2016-04-05
A beloved classic, this definitive volume on the art of writing nonfiction celebrated its thirtieth anniversary with this 2016 edition. On Writing Well, which grew out of a course that William Zinsser taught at Yale, has been praised for its sound advice, its clarity, and for the warmth of its style. It is a book for anybody who wants to learn how to write or who needs to do some writing to get through the day, as almost everybody does. Whether you want to write about people or places, science and technology, business, sports, the arts, or about yourself in the increasingly popular memoir genre, On Writing Well offers you both fundamental principles as well as the insights of a distinguished practitioner.
Perfect English Grammar by Grant Barrett
ISBN: 1623157145
Publication Date: 2016-03-29
While this book is not literally perfect, reading it will definitely help you improve your grasp of even the trickiest grammar concept. Language learners at all levels can find what they’re looking for quickly and easily, and the book is written in a conversational style that is easily browsable, and entertaining to read.
The Story of English by Robert McCrum; William Cran; Robert MacNeil
ISBN: 9780142002315
Publication Date: 2002-12-31
For anyone – native speaker or English language learner -- who has wondered why English is the way it is (chaotic, inconsistent, difficult, redundant), this book provides an introduction to the history of spoken and written English--from its Anglo-Saxon origins some two thousand years ago to the present day, when English is the dominant language of commerce and culture with more than one billion English speakers around the world.