Frequently Asked Questions

The quickly-evolving capabilities of generative AI make it tempting to imagine that most writing will soon be done by machines. However, we don’t see writing as a product, but as a cognitive, analytical, communicative, collaborative, and self-reflective process. In other words, “writing” is not just the final piece of work that someone produces; it is the thinking and learning process behind that final piece of work. UMD’s C&AWP courses help students develop those thinking and learning processes. Furthermore, when students learn how to think, write, and revise confidently on their own, they will be better positioned to decide whether to delegate certain writing tasks to machines, and to evaluate the quality of what they produce.

UMD’s College Writing (WRIT 1120) tends to be equivalent to what many other institutions offer as a second-semester first-year writing requirement. If you’re not sure, check Transferology. If you believe the course you took meets at least 70% of the learning outcomes for  WRIT 1120, you can complete this form to request a course transfer evaluation or petition a current decision. It’s helpful when you can provide a copy of the syllabus.

Go to Transferology to search for your previous institutions and enter the courses you took at the other institutions.  If you believe the course you took meets at least 70% of the learning outcomes for College and/or Advanced Writing, you can complete this form to request a course transfer evaluation or petition a current decision. It’s helpful when you can provide a copy of the syllabus.

We acknowledge that you wouldn’t have gotten into college without some writing skills. That said, writing is like any other skill: practice improves performance and confidence. College and Advanced Writing will give you practice identifying questions; finding answers; analyzing your readers' needs, knowledge, and attitudes about your topic; and preparing texts that use appropriate evidence, genres, tone, and media. It will also give you some specific project management tools to help you collaborate better with others. Finally, it aims to give you an understanding of your own process and how you can approach independent projects more effectively. 

While writing may not be a defining feature of your future career, institutional researchers have found that writing skills can be a “gatekeeper” to positions with higher pay and more autonomy within a company or organization. That means writing skills may not get you the job, but they could help you to get promoted. Furthermore, from emails to performance evaluations to grant applications, many people are surprised by how much writing IS involved in their career. Finally, C&AWP courses focus on helping you develop the thinking and learning processes behind writing projects. The ability to plan, think critically, solve problems independently, and communicate clearly are among the skills most consistently sought by employers across fields.

We understand that not everyone speaks the same kind of English that people are expected to write in school. We who study Linguistics and Writing Studies call this kind of school dialect “Edited Standard Written English” (ESWE). It is well known that grammar drills tend to bore students and/or do little to improve usage. Instead, we teach the conventions of spelling, grammar, and mechanics in context, which means that we give students feedback and resources to learn conventions of ESWE to apply to the texts they are in the process of editing. We also recognize that the conventions of ESWE are not always appropriate for every writing situation, and we work with students to think about the conventions that best fit the variety of situations they might encounter.

A student learning outcome in College Writing is to “Articulate and employ effective strategies for interpreting difficult and substantive texts.” This means that when your instructor asks you to read articles and/or excerpts from books that you might find challenging, they will help you identify your purpose for reading, as well as how annotating and paraphrasing can help you better understand and remember what you read. Some instructors will require more reading than others, but you can certainly count on reading a lot about whichever topic you decide to research.  

Another student learning outcome in both College and Advanced Writing is “Collaborate with peers effectively,” which means learning to listen comprehensively to others, take initiative within group work, and cooperate as a team member. You can count on doing some collaboration with other students, while also learning methods for facilitating discussions, organizing and planning tasks, and distributing labor equitably. Many students report that the collaborative project in Advanced Writing is a surprisingly pleasant and beneficial experience.

In College and Advanced Writing you will mostly write for academic and professional purposes and audiences. If you like to express yourself through writing, consider taking fiction writing (ENGL 1116 and ENGL 3116), poetry writing (ENGL 1122 and ENGL 3122), and/or memoir and journal writing (WRIT 1106). If you take several of these courses, you can even earn a Creative Writing Certificate.