Written Expression

All of us, students and faculty alike, share responsibility for promoting the effective and wise use of language. Language is central to education since it is the chief means by which the transmission and exchange of ideas takes place. Nowhere are clarity and precision of language so important or so difficult to achieve as in writing. We, therefore, take special care to encourage excellence in writing, both in our own work and in the work of our students, through Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) components in all disciplines.

Students should:

1. recognize that they are expected to write well at all times;
2. realize that the way they say something affects what they say; and
3. write, revise, and rewrite each paper so that it represents the best work they are able to do.

Similarly, faculty members should:

1. set high standards for their own use of language;
2. provide appropriate occasions for students to exercise their writing skills;
3. set minimum standards of written expression in all courses;
4. acquaint the students with those standards and inform them of their responsibility to meet them and the consequences if they do not;
5. evaluate written work in light of effectiveness of expression as well as content; and
6. aid students in their development by pointing out deficiencies in their written work and assisting them with special writing problems arising from the demands of a particular field of study.