The Writing Center is offering extra assistance for NIU students and instructors.

This semester, the Writing Center will have workshops from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Mondays for instructors and Tuesdays for students. The workshops will take place in the Smart Classroom of the Writing Center, in the basement of Stevenson B Tower.

Technology specialist Melina Baer said the instructor-workshops will focus on tips for talking to students about plagiarism and helping students with assignments and group work.

The student workshops will cover research strategies, HTML basics, portfolios, organizational skills, proofreading and revision tips.

“Students of all levels and all majors are welcome to attend the free workshops,” said associate director Lynda Nance.

The idea to create a workshop came from Baer and Nance.

“The students were asking the same questions over and over again; we decided to make a workshop to give students more help,” Baer said.

These new workshops may be good for some students like junior math major Vanneil Borders.

“The new workshops are good because they help students learn different ways to write a good paper,” he said.

These workshops already have started and 20 seats are available for Monday and Tuesday.

“Only about three or four show up for instructor day and about 10 show up for student day,” Baer said.

These are the first writing workshops the Center has offered to students and the workshops are slated to continue next semester as well, Baer said.

“We would like to find ways to extend our hand to students,” Nance said.

Interested parties can contact the Writing Center at 753-6636 with questions.