The Writing Center

The Writing Center is a service of the Department of English designed to help midshipmen improve their writing skills. We work with midshipmen individually to help them solve their writing problems and answer their questions – whether it's a plebe working on an essay or an upperclassman writing a lab report, application, or letter.

We offer help with any step of the writing process, from brainstorming to polishing the final draft. In addition to regular essays, we help you with letters of application, scientific abstracts, short stories – any kind of writing is welcome.

What We Do

The Naval Academy's Writing Center was established to foster the writing development of midshipmen, and we provide assistance with any sort of writing, from essays assigned by course instructors to creative writing. Some of the many tasks we can help you with include:

The Writing Process

• Getting started
• Choosing a topic
• Generating a thesis statement
• Organizing an argument
• Using effective transitions
• Editing and revising
• Preparing introductions and conclusions

Writing Research Papers

• Citations
• Bibliography
• Style books

Improving Basic Writing Skills

• Complete sentences
• Verb tenses
• Punctuation
• Agreement
• Paragraph structure

Writing for Special Audiences

• Preparing for essay exams
• Writing about literature
• Preparing lab reports, abstracts, and summaries
• Organizing resumes
• Composing letters or applications
• Writing in a military context

More than Writing Help

In addition to offering tutorials, we have a variety of materials and resources available, including:

• Computer/printing workstations
• Coffee, tea, hot cocoa, and snacks
• Reference books
• Writing handbooks
• Literary works and anthologies

What to Expect in a Tutoring Session

The Writing Center staff are English professors, military instructors, and trained midshipman volunteers who will work with you in a one-on-one tutoring session. These sessions usually last fifty minutes (one period), although they may be shorter. Each session will focus on your concerns. We can help generate ideas, address large questions of organization and structure, and assist with more specific issues of syntax and grammar. We won't write your paper for you, but we will walk through the assignment with you, offering suggestions for development and improvement.

Plan Ahead!

Each year the Writing Center holds over 1,000 tutorial sessions, and we want to make the most of each one. Keep in mind that we can help you best if you...

• Bring a writing sample with you
• Don't wait to come in until the last minute before an assignment is due

Group Lectures and Workshops

Each semester the Writing Center sponsors a series of writing workshops. These events are open to all interested midshipmen and range in scope from seminars on professional communication to workshops for poetry and creative writing.

Materials for Midshipmen

The Writing Center provides a wide range of materials and resources for midshipmen, including a cross-disciplinary style guide, listings of writing resources and guides from other colleges and universities, research aids, and documentation resources.