 | Faculty of Arts & Science
2012-2013 Calendar |
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| Faculty of Arts & Science
2012-2013 Calendar |
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The ability to think critically and to write well-organized, clear, grammatical prose is important to your work in Arts and Science courses. It will also improve your chances if you apply to graduate or professional schools and will give you an advantage in the workplace. To help you develop your writing skills, Arts and Science provides a range of instructional resources.
NOTE: For courses in creative writing, see entries under “English” (ENG), “Innis College” (INI), University (UC), and “Victoria” (VIC) in this Calendar.
Courses
Departments and programs integrate writing instruction into many of their courses, and some offer courses that concentrate on communication in their disciplines. Check the course listings by department.
In any course, your instructors and teaching assistants will provide guidelines for written assignments. They will often offer instruction in class and give you the opportunity to ask questions before assignments are due. You may ask them to discuss work that has been graded and returned to you.
In addition, the university offers several courses in writing non-fiction prose:
Innis College offers a minor program called Writing and Rhetoric. Its offerings include the following courses, all listed under “Innis College”: INI103H1 (Writing Essays), INI104H1 (Writing Reports), INI203Y1 (Foundations of Written Discourse), INI204Y1 (The Academic Writing Process), JEI206H1 (Writing English Essays), INI300H1 (Strategic Writing in Business and the Professions: Theory and Practice), INI301H1 (Contemporary Issues and Written Discourse: Rhetoric and the Print Media), INI304H1 (Critical Thinking and Inquiry in Written Communication), INI305H1 (Word and Image in Modern Writing), INI311Y1 (Seminar in Creative Writing), and INI412Y1 (Prose Style across Genres).
The University of Toronto at Mississauga (UTM) offers a major and minor program in Professional Writing and Communication. Consult with your college registrar about taking courses at UTM, and see the UTM calendar for more detail about courses offered.
English Language Learning Opportunities
The new English Language Learning initiative (ELL) offers undergraduates in Arts and Science a variety of ways to develop skills and confidence in both oral and written communication. For its intensive non-credit summer course, see the entry for ELL010H1 under “New College” in this calendar. During term, programming includes free drop-in workshops using a variety of interesting activities to improve speaking confidence, and also an online component for practising reading and critical thinking.
Writing Centres
The Writing Centres provided free of charge at undergraduate colleges will help you develop the writing skills needed throughout your university studies. They offer both group and individual instruction.
The Writing Plus workshops are short intensive group sessions that demonstrate the expectations for university writing. They cover all stages of writing university papers, from understanding the assignment to revising the final draft, and they give targeted advice for handling your reading load and the challenges of studying for tests and exams. Special sessions focus on writing admissions statements for graduate programs. See the News section of www.writing.utoronto.ca for dates and locations.
In individual consultations, trained writing instructors help you improve your ability to plan, write, and revise, using your assignments from any subject as examples. Instructors are familiar with writing conventions in the whole range of Arts and Science courses, and some specialize in the needs of students using English as a second language. You are entitled to use the writing centre of the college where you are registered. All the college writing centres now use an online booking system that requires your UTORid for login. The two departmental writing centres serve students taking courses in those departments; you can make appointments by phone. More information is available in the Writing Centres section of www.writing.utoronto.ca. Here is a list of Arts and Science writing centres.
Self-Help Material
Campus libraries stock many reference guides for academic writing, some of them online. You will find both general handbooks on style and referencing, and guides on writing in specific disciplines. You can also consult the Advice section of the website Writing at the University of Toronto at www.writing.utoronto.ca. It contains short files addressing common issues in academic writing along with links to other useful online and print resources.