All first-year students take a University Writing Seminar, which is offered in conjunction with a University Seminar in Humanistic Inquiries. The purpose of the University Writing Seminar is to introduce students to the conventions of formal writing and rhetoric and to further develop writing skills.
Special emphasis is placed on forms of argumentation, analysis, and persuasion.
Other areas of attention include critical reading, research skills, proper documentation, and the use of the resources of the University Libraries for research assignments. University Writing Seminars will share some subject matter and written assignments with their linked University seminars. Writing intensive courses are upper-level courses that are offered in departments throughout the University. Normally taken in a student's second or third year, these courses are based in a specific academic discipline and require frequent or regular attention to writing and instruction in the skills of academic writing. In these courses, writing as a process is respected as an essential component of the academic content.