Welcome to the Writing Center at Fort Hays State University!
Schedule an Appointment
The Writing Center is committed to creating a safe, respectful environment for students, staff, faculty, and alumni. While sponsored by English Programs, we serve the entire campus community. We welcome all FHSU students to receive free, individual consultation about writing at any stage of the writing process. Because we believe that learning to write is a life-long process, our goal is to create better writers and habits of mind through one-on-one sessions.
Our team of undergraduate and graduate consultants is trained to provide students with a space to work actively on writing. We offer resources, strategies, and techniques across a variety of disciplines. We will converse with you at any stage of your writing process, from reviewing assignment guidelines to offering strategies for revision.
Our work includes help with:
- understanding assignment guidelines
- generating ideas (e.g., brainstorming)
- content development
- approaches to organization
- research and source evaluation
- revision strategies
- source documentation
- sentence structure and technical errors
- feedback for application materials such as resumés and cover letters
Ready to make an appointment? Click on the "Appointment Information" tab for instructions and a link to our appointment system!
Writing, Social Justice, and Anti-Racism Work: What We Believe
The FHSU community is made up of people from multiple backgrounds and experiences with writing in the English language. In the FHSU Writing Center, we understand that these diverse backgrounds affect our preparation and encounters with writing. Academic writing requires learning how to navigate disciplinary conventions and expectations. This is a challenging process that involves time, patience, and work. We know from decades of educational research that our previous experiences with writing and language can influence how we learn. Since these experiences often reflect deeply-rooted social inequities, the Writing Center seeks to consistently develop everyday practices that advocate for equity and social justice. We believe that, in doing so, we are more likely to sustain our primary role as a resource center characterized by respect, safety, and inclusion. Therefore, we strive to:
- actively advocate for language usage that is mindful of differences
- recognize microaggressions and use these instances as opportunities for personal growth
- address written and spoken aggressions, including those about race, socioeconomic status, age, disability, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, national origin, military status, gender, gender identity, and gender expression, among others
- educate ourselves and our community about how modern racism and sexism, which reflect the ways racism and sexism persist in our societal structures, inform perspectives about capability with writing and language usage
- listen to the content of writers’ ideas and language usage prior to suggesting corrections to grammar and formatting, as we understand from decades of writing scholarship that an initial focus on grammar may stifle content development
- actively resist the notion that one’s facility with grammar is a measure of intelligence
- conduct ourselves as learners alongside other writers
- foster awareness of audience, genre, and social purposes of writing, with the understanding that language is ever-changing and that academic expectations of correctness are critical to navigating one’s field of study
- understand that mistakes are part of the learning process
- revisit (and revise, as necessary) these commitments and facilitate regular discussion and professional development so that these ideals manifest in our everyday practices