Writing Studio Offers Students Expertise, Encouragement Wherever They Are

Devon Stubblefield of Little Rock earned a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree with coursework delivered online by the University of Arkansas. The program includes clinical hours where students put into practice all the health care knowledge they gain.

It also includes writing.

“The Writing Studio was wonderful to have as a resource for whenever we needed people to proofread our papers prior to submission,” Stubblefield said. “And, having somebody look over our paper with us for the final DNP project was really nice. A Zoom option instead of having to go all the way to campus was helpful.”

There was no way her schedule of working, studying and living allowed her to drive 3 hours to campus to use services to assist with writing projects.

Resources are available online from the U of A Libraries, resources she needed for her capstone project in the terminal degree program offered in the College of Education and Health Professions. Stubblefield presented her project, “Exploration of Advanced Practice and Registered Nurses’ Perception of Barriers to Promoting and Supporting Breastfeeding in Primary Care,” at last spring’s Annual Nursing Science Day hosted by the Eleanor Mann School of Nursing.

 

Help Available

Chris Borntrager is in his second year as coordinator of the Writing Studio, which is part of Student Success services physically located in the Cordia Harrington Center for Excellence (The CORD) on campus.

Any U of A student can bring any piece of writing to the Studio – or make an appointment for a consultation conducted online.

“There is nothing that a UA student can’t bring to us,” Borntrager said. “Traditionally, we help with essays assigned in a class, shorter response papers, larger research papers, undergraduate theses, master’s theses and Ph.D. dissertations 10 pages at a time.”

The Writing Studio also works with the Office of Nationally Competitive Awards, the Office of Study Abroad and International Exchange, the Honors College and the Graduate School and International Education, not for classes, but for letters, essays and applications students must write to apply for grants, awards, scholarships and travel funding.

“When they really need to get it right, they can get another pair of eyes to make sure it’s as good as it can be,” Borntrager said. “Students can even bring in personal writing not for a class such as piece of fiction or poetry, as long as they are a U of A student.”

 

Writing Instruction

Borntrager holds a master’s degree in English from the U of A as well as a doctorate in rhetoric and composition. He formerly taught writing instruction at the U of A.

“This job is a really good marriage of what makes good writing and administrative concerns, which I like because it involves fixing everyday tangible problems,” he said.

As a former instructor, he knows well what is expected of students in their writing. The studio employs two graduate assistants who help with the office’s operations and a number of additional students who work as writing consultants.

Borntrager encourages the writing consultants to get students to look critically at an assignment, to consider what the instructor has said in class, not just what is on the assignment instructions.

“I have 10 years of teaching experience and nine years of writing experience,” Borntrager said. “What’s different here is we have to be ready to serve everyone. We have to be ready for anything: lab reports, history papers. We have to think really broadly. We might come across a subject we are not familiar with. It’s the student’s job to know the content.”

The writing consultants, who represent a wide variety of majors, give the student an audience, to see how their text delivers meaning to someone, he said.

“That’s really valuable because everyone is expected to be able to communicate in their field,” Borntrager said. “All of the writing consultants are so good at their jobs. I keep my office door open so I can hear what’s going on.”

 

Challenges on Paper

One of the most common struggles students face in writing is just getting started, Borntrager said. Some students arrive at the Writing Studio feeling overwhelmed, he said.

“They come in with an assignment and a plaintive look,” he said. “They don’t know where to start. Some of the best consultations occur when nothing is on the paper, but we sit down and talk about, ‘what you want to do, what you think you are supposed to do.’ We see the energy they have when they walk out. That’s really gratifying.”

Students studying in online degree programs tend to be older than traditional college undergraduates and may not have been in school for several years.

Challenges may be different with every paper, Borntrager said, but often improvements can be made by making sure parts of the paper such as the introduction and conclusion work together, paragraphs have tangible points and transitions move the reader smoothly through the paper.

“Our writing consultants are trained to respond to what they see,” he said. “That makes it both hard and cool. We have to assess pretty quickly. Like a good teacher, they have to scaffold their instruction taking into account where students are with where they want to go.”

 

Artificial Intelligence

Instructors at the U of A can decide whether to allow students to use AI at all and, if so, to what extent. The Writing Studio upholds academic honesty and integrity policies of the U of A in its work with students.

“All of my writing consultants are very good writers and readers able to tell pretty clearly when something is written by a chatbot,” Borntrager said. “Our stance is we can help with papers that use generative AI if the instructor allows the use. We are focused not just on the product but on the writer.”

Writing consultants talk with students about responsible, effective use of AI, and one of them is researching writing and generative AI ethics, Borntrager said.

“We will look at that research Studio-wide,” he said. “Anyone who is interested in writing seems to have an opinion on this, and experts in writing studies are starting to address it.”