The Writing Center

Outcomes Statement and Rationale

The Oregon State University (OSU) Writing Center is committed to supporting best practices in composition and rhetoric and engages in assessment that leverages these best practices in the discipline. We, therefore, align our outcomes with the Council of Writing Program Administrators (WPA) Outcomes Statement for First-Year Composition.

Although the Writing Center supports OSU students who have moved beyond the Writing I requirement, emphasizing the WPA first-year outcomes included below provides a pragmatic and appropriate foundation for supporting student writing as it develops and diversifies along disciplinary and professional lines. These outcomes are aligned with the following University Learning Goals for Graduates: Critical Thinking, Communication, and Self-Awareness and Lifelong Learning.  Given the Writing Center’s focus on developing student writing across the range of disciplines represented at OSU, fully-articulated disciplinary and professional writing outcomes are more appropriately defined at the departmental and program level.

Finally, we want to acknowledge the work of our University partners in the Writing Program, the Writing Intensive Curriculum, the University Libraries , faculty in the Colleges, and other academic support units on campus. The OSU Writing Center makes no claims that we alone directly cause student writing improvements. Rather, we participate in a campus-wide effort in support of students who are learning to write in complex global, academic, and professional environments. We are humbled and grateful to be working with this powerful group of campus collaborators.

OSU Writing Center Outcomes

Rhetorical Knowledge Outcomes:

• Outcome: Students who use the Writing Center will be able to engage in conversations on tone, voice, and the appropriate level of formality.

• Outcome: Students who use the Writing Center will be able to engage in conversations where they discuss conventions of format and structure appropriate to the rhetorical situation.
  

Processes Outcomes:

• Outcome: Students who use the Writing Center will be able to engage in conversations in which writing is discussed as an open-ended process that permits writers to use recursive invention and re-thinking strategies to revise their work.

• Outcome: Students who use the Writing Center will save extensive editing for later parts of the writing process.
  

Knowledge of Conventions Outcomes:

• Outcome: Students who use the Writing Center will use strategies for appropriately documenting their work.