The University of Waterloo Writing and Communication Centre is a hub of communication and writing practice, support, and research on campus. Writing a paper? Designing a portfolio? Giving a presentation? From brainstorming to revision, understanding your assignment to presenting your work, we are here to support you in any discipline, at any stage of the communication process.
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About the WCC
News
IBPOC Student Writing Cafés have moved to EC5 room 2303
The IBPOC Student Writing Cafés have a new location!
Registration Now Open for Rock Your Thesis 2: Starting to Write
The second in the three-part “Rock Your Thesis” series, this workshop will equip you with the skills you need to start writing a large academic writing project like a thesis, dissertation or dissertation proposal. This hands-on, interactive program has four objectives:
Register for our in-person workshop series: Design and Deliver Grad Studio
Welcome to Design & Deliver Grad studio, a workshop series that takes you through the process of planning and designing a spoken academic presentation. If you’re working on a specific presentation, we encourage you to attend all three: start by organizing your ideas in “Planning for and preparing presentations,” learn how to create engaging slides in “Slide Design,” and practice strategies for confidently answering questions in “Defending and Answering Questions.”
Events
Black, Indigenous and Racialized Students' Writing Café
The Black, Indigenous and Racialized Students' Writing Café is a social writing group. Unlike traditional peer feedback-based writing groups, we don’t read each other’s finished writing: instead, we write together to create a community of writers who can cheer each other on during what is often an isolating, difficult journey!
Just like our Wednesday in-person grad writing cafés, the Black, Indigenous and Racialized Students' Writing Café uses the Pomodoro Method to organize writing sessions into smaller, more manageable chunks of focused writing with frequent breaks. As a participant, then, you’ll still get several 30-minute blocks of writing with short breaks to help you re-focus, stretch, get coffee/ tea/water, and chat with the other participants, but this group is designed specifically for Black, Indigenous and racialized students (at any level, grad or undergrad) and postdoctoral scholars.
This group is informed by anti-racist pedagogies and hosted by WCC staff who understand the intimate relationship between writing and identity first-hand. Join to connect to a supportive community of peers, share your challenges and successes, or just to get some focused writing done!
When: Tuesdays from 3:00 p.m to 5:00 p.m. from May 12 to August 25 (no session May 26 and June 16)
Where: South Campus Hall (SCH) 228F
In-person Grad Writing Cafés
Looking for a writing community? Grab a coffee and get writing! Join our network of graduate student writers at the in-person Writing Café! Meet other writers, stay on track, and make progress in your work. Writing doesn’t have to be solitary!
Building sustainable writing habits starts with structure and community. Writers tackling a big writing project often struggle with isolation or a lack of structure that leaves them procrastinating. If that sounds familiar, then writing groups can help. This social space with an established structure for getting writing done can help you feel connected to your peers while practicing effective and sustainable writing habits. It’s open to graduate students, postdocs and faculty.
We use the Pomodoro Method to organize writing sessions into smaller, more manageable chunks of focused writing with frequent breaks. As a participant, you’ll get several 30-minute blocks of writing time as well as short breaks to help you re-focus, stretch, and chat with the other participants.
These cafés are also open to any graduate student, postdoctoral scholar, or faculty member at the University of Waterloo.
When: Wednesdays from 2:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. from May 13 to August 26 (no session on June 10, 17, and July 1)
Where: The GSA Grad Lounge (SLC 3216)
Black, Indigenous and Racialized Students' Writing Café
The Black, Indigenous and Racialized Students' Writing Café is a social writing group. Unlike traditional peer feedback-based writing groups, we don’t read each other’s finished writing: instead, we write together to create a community of writers who can cheer each other on during what is often an isolating, difficult journey!
Just like our Wednesday in-person grad writing cafés, the Black, Indigenous and Racialized Students' Writing Café uses the Pomodoro Method to organize writing sessions into smaller, more manageable chunks of focused writing with frequent breaks. As a participant, then, you’ll still get several 30-minute blocks of writing with short breaks to help you re-focus, stretch, get coffee/ tea/water, and chat with the other participants, but this group is designed specifically for Black, Indigenous and racialized students (at any level, grad or undergrad) and postdoctoral scholars.
This group is informed by anti-racist pedagogies and hosted by WCC staff who understand the intimate relationship between writing and identity first-hand. Join to connect to a supportive community of peers, share your challenges and successes, or just to get some focused writing done!
When: Tuesdays from 3:00 p.m to 5:00 p.m. from May 12 to August 25 (no session May 26 and June 16)
Where: South Campus Hall (SCH) 228F
Blog
4 Things I Wish I Knew as a First Year Student
I know it can be scary to begin university, and in my case, being an international student meant that I was going to be away from family and friends, or in other words, home…
Top 6 COVID-19 Prompts to Ace Your Next Virtual Interview
Going digital is the new normal. This could be about moving in-person services to the virtual space or adjusting from on-location work to remote work. As the world is adapting to the pandemic by transitioning online, we must also adapt our skills and job search to this change as well. This includes having to do co-op placements or jobs at home on your computers and having to be interviewed for those positions virtually with answers that highlight your digital skills.
Below we have compiled some key interview questions with helpful answers to get you through the interview successfully.
Interview with UW’s award-winning graduate student presenter, Nikolay Videnov
Last semester, Nikolay Videnov won the Best Presenter award at the University of Waterloo and the University of Strathclyde’s Virtual Research Colloquium. We love to see UW students succeed at presentations, so we thought we’d reach out and have a short conversation about how that presentation came together, and to pick Nikolay’s brain about the process.