Students are welcome to come to the Center for a quiet place to write. When students visit the Writing Center, they will find not only tutors ready to work with them, but also a variety of resource materials to help them with their written work.
Below is a partial list of the books available for student use. Please note that books are for use in the Writing Center only.
Dictionaries - including foreign language dictionaries for French, Spanish, German, Italian, and Russian
Thesauruses - books of quotations, famous speeches, proverbs, literary terms
Reference Books
writing the college application essay
writing essay exams
writing about biology, history, sociology, and film
special formats and conventions of English in the business world
navigating the Internet
Grammar Guides - grammar handbooks and exercise books, including the standard DCC grammar reference book
Texts - textbooks used in campus composition and reading classes
ESL - reference materials for ESL students
Studies - studies in writing theory, writing across the curriculum, journal writing, portfolio assessments
Anthologies - literature anthologies and guides to critical analysis
Articles - articles on writing-related topics, e.g., collaborative learning, composition theory, writing centers, writing across the curriculum, English as a second language, linguistic studies
Research - books and handouts on writing the research paper, including guides for documentation in the MLA and APA styles
Sample Papers - a file of assignments and sample papers for selected classes. Instructors have placed on file model student papers that effectively respond to specific assignments.
The Writing Center also maintains a large file of handouts on many topics of grammar, mechanics, style, and essay writing, and citation. These paper handouts are free to take with you after your visit to the Center. Topics include:
MLA and APA citation styles
common essay types
resume writing
comma usage, comma splices
semicolons, colons
pronoun reference
scientific words, commonly mistaken words
outlines
brainstorming, clustering
conciseness in style
logical fallacies
Check out these electronic copies of widely used handouts from the Writing Center:
Also visit the DCC Library's webpage for important information and tutorials about writing research papers, including MLA, APA, and other citation styles and formats for annotated bibliographies.
Additionally, the Ritz Library provides students with two helpful information literacy tutorials from Credo and Proquest. These self-paced guides offer interactive text and video that can help you learn how to choose a topic, find information, evaluate sources, develop a thesis, organize an argument, avoid plagiarism, and much more.