WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO WORK ON?

  • Disciplinary Writing: Understand how scholars in your field develop content or subject matter in ways that meet the expectations of your disciplinary community and understand the organization, communicative goals, and writing strategies of your research genre.
  • Interdisciplinary Writing: Articulate the significance of research topics to field while critically evaluating literature and integrating sources to situate your unique research topic within the literature in the field.
  • English Writing: Identify English writing difficulties, understand your own needs for language improvement, and discuss writing issues in a culturally sensitive environment.
  • Thesis/Dissertation Writing: Plan, write, revise, or format your thesis/dissertation in line with the ISU Graduate College's thesis/dissertation submission requirements and deadlines
  • Competitive Funding Application Writing: Prepare proposals for various national programs, such as the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program, the National Defense Science & Engineering Graduate Fellowship, the Naval Research Enterprise Internship Program, and more!

Learn More About Consultation Types

Disciplinary Writing Consultants use one-on-one appointments to help graduate students in their disciplines develop content or subject matter in ways that meet the expectations of their disciplinary community and understand the organization, communicative goals, and writing strategies of the research genre.

Graduate peer mentors serving as Disciplinary Writing Consultants operate within four dimensions, helping graduate students in the following ways:

Discipline-specific communication
  • Understand how scholars in their field develop content or subject matter in ways that meet the expectations of their disciplinary community
  • Outline and organize their manuscripts or thesis/dissertation chapters
  • Articulate the significance of research topics to the field
  • Critically evaluate literature and integrate sources to appropriately situate research topics within the literature in the field
  • Define and justify a guiding framework
  • Describe research methods in a clear and credible way
  • Report and interpret research results effectively, developing warranted take-home messages and creating effective, visualizations of statistically analyzed data
  • Frame, position, and weigh propositions in a coherent discussion
  • Articulate the value and contribution of their study to the field
  • Critically evaluate and refine their research writing according to disciplinary writing expectations,
  • Understand the organization, communicative goals, and writing strategies of research genres (e.g., research articles, thesis/dissertations, conference abstracts, proceedings papers)
Scholarly communication and writing conventions
  • Differentiate between writing for journal publications, theses/dissertations, and grant proposal writing (e.g., research articles share very specific communicative goals and strategies for developing scientific arguments, some of which are similar to other research genres and some are different)
  • Understand the scope, aims, audience, and quality of journals and identify appropriate publication venues
  • Understand ethical issues in scholarly writing and publishing
  • Understand the expectations of co-authorship
  • Understand manuscript submission requirements, peer-review process, and expectations of responding to reviewers
Academic and professional development
  • Identify academic writing conventions using a bank of disciplinary and scholarly writing resources
  • Locate literature relevant to students’ research focus using library search engines and resources
  • Effectively use writing technologies for (e.g., RWT, electronic collections of texts, search engines for linguistic data)
Departmental and graduate program requirements
  • Communicate research and writing intentions more effectively to faculty to solicit feedback
  • Plan for graduate program requirements (e.g., preparing for preliminary and/or comprehensive exams)
  • Understand and meet programmatic requirements (e.g., planning curriculum, identifying and communicating with prospective POS committee members, filing paperwork for defenses and graduation)
  • Prepare their documents for submission to the POS committee and thesis/dissertation to the Graduate College

Interdisciplinary Writing Consultants offer one-on-one appointments to help graduate students in any discipline articulate the significance of their research in ways that match the scopes, aims, and standards in strong scientific arguments in their field and across genres (e.g., research writing, grant writing, scientific communication).

Graduate peer mentors serving as Interdisciplinary Writing Consultants operate within three dimensions, helping graduate students in the following ways: 

Cross-disciplinary genre expectations
  • Understand how scholars develop content or subject matter in ways that meet the expectations of their research community
  • Outline and organize their manuscripts or thesis/dissertation chapters
  • Articulate the significance of research topics to field
  • Critically evaluate literature and integrate sources to appropriately situate research topics within the literature in the field
  • Define and justify a guiding framework
  • Describe research methods in a clear and credible way
  • Report and interpret research results effectively, developing warranted take-home messages and creating effective, visualizations of statistically analyzed data
  • Frame, position, and weigh propositions in a coherent discussion
  • Articulate the value and contribution of their study to the field
  • Critically evaluate and refine their research writing according to research writing expectations
  • Understand the organization, communicative goals, and writing strategies of research genres (e.g., research articles, thesis/dissertations, conference abstracts, proceedings papers)

Scholarly communication conventions
  • Differentiate between writing for journal publications, theses/dissertations, and grant proposal writing (e.g., research articles share very specific communicative goals and strategies for developing scientific arguments, some of which are similar to other research genres and some are different)
  • Understand the scope, aims, audience, and quality of journals and identify appropriate publication venues
  • Understand ethical issues in scholarly writing and publishing
  • Understand the expectations of co-authorship
  • Understand manuscript submission requirements, peer-review process, and expectations of responding to reviewers

Academic and professional development
  • Identify academic writing conventions using scholarly writing resources
  • Locate literature relevant to students’ research focus using library search engines and resources
  • Effectively use writing technologies for (e.g., RWT, electronic collections of texts, search engines for linguistic data)

English Writing Consultants offer one-on-one appointments to non-native English-speaking graduate students who wish to improve recurring language needs and concerns at the macro-level (structure, cohesion, clarity) or micro-level (grammar, style, word choice).

The English Writing Consultants operate within three dimensions, helping international graduate students in the following ways:

Language needs awareness
  • Diagnose English writing difficulties and understand own needs for language improvement,
  • Discuss writing issues in a culturally sensitive environment,
  • Understand cross-cultural differences in logic, topic development, rhetorical patterns, and/or argumentation,
  • Clarify misunderstandings of faculty feedback,
  • Locate and effectively use resources for independent and/or guided English writing practice and developement.

Macro-level writing difficulties
  • Understand the linguistic realizations of the conventions of research genres,

  • Enhance overall communicative effectiveness, substantiation of claims, and use of appropriate discourse features,

  • Clarify purpose to ensure appropriate discourse structure,
  • Choose appropriate linguistic signals and signposts in the development of scientific arguments,
  • Use appropriate language structures to sustain consistency and cohesion,
  • Improve understanding and use of strategies for concise and precise writing,
  • Use appropriate language structures to express author stance.

Micro-level writing difficulties
  • Address recurrent grammatical and stylistic errors,
  • Clarify the meaning of unclear sentences and phrases,
  • Make appropriate lexical choices to clearly express intended meaning in small stretches of text,
  • Expand academic English vocabulary.

The Thesis/Dissertation Writing Consultants have been trained to help graduate students across the disciplines plan, write, revise, or format their thesis or dissertation.

They operate within four dimensions, assisting graduate students in the following ways: 

Cross-disciplinary genre expectations
  • Understand how scholars develop content or subject matter in ways that meet the expectations of their research community,
  • Outline and organize their manuscripts or thesis/dissertation chapters,
  • Articulate the significance of research topics to field,
  • Critically evaluate literature and integrate sources to appropriately situate research topics within the literature in the field,
  • Define and justify a guiding framework,
  • Describe research methods in a clear and credible way,
  • Report and interpret research results effectively, developing warranted take-home messages and creating effective, visualizations of statistically analyzed data,
  • Frame, position, and weigh propositions in a coherent discussion,
  • Articulate the value and contribution of their study to the field,
  • Critically evaluate and refine their research writing according to research writing expectations,
  • Understand the organization, communicative goals, and writing strategies of research genres (e.g., research articles, thesis/dissertations, conference abstracts, proceedings papers).
Scholarly communication conventions
  • Differentiate between writing for journal publications, theses/dissertations, and grant proposal writing (e.g., research articles share very specific communicative goals and strategies for developing scientific arguments, some of which are similar to other research genres and some are different),
  • Understand the scope, aims, audience, and quality of journals and identify appropriate publication venues,
  • Understand ethical issues in scholarly writing and publishing,
  • Understand the expectations of co-authorship,
  • Understand manuscript submission requirements, peer-review process, and expectations of responding to reviewers.
Academic and professional development
  • Identify academic writing conventions using scholarly writing resources,
  • Locate literature relevant to students’ research focus using library search engines and resources,
  • Effectively use writing technologies for (e.g., RWT, electronic collections of texts, search engines for linguistic data).
Thesis/Dissertation writing and formatting conventions
  • Distinguish between expectations of other scholarly genre writing and those of the thesis, dissertation, or creative component,
  • Understand ISU Graduate College's thesis/dissertation submission requirements and deadlines in preparation for graduation,
  • Align thesis or dissertation document to adhere to formatting standards in preparation for the capstone project's submission to ProQuest,
  • Proficiently exploit Microsoft Word and LaTeX capabilities and functions to produce a thesis/dissertation document that fits the Graduate College's required format. 

Nationally Competitive Awards Writing Consultants support graduate students in preparing impactful self-promotional materials and proposals for competitive scholarships, fellowships, grants, and more.

The Nationally Competitive Awards (NCA) Writing consultants operate within three dimensions, helping graduate and undergraduate award applicants in the following ways:

Opportunity-focused expectations
  • Understand funding agency expectations and requirements
  • Highlight students' qualities and abilities to parallel the needs of the funding organization
  • Frame students' research, professional, and/or career interests to align with the program mission
  • Present a compelling case for their proposed research or project
  • Integrate relevant details about students' lives and experiences to develop an application that stands out and gets noticed
  • Address the specific requirements of applications, such as targeted (short-answer) questions and length limits
  • Emphasize their strengths as a candidate; re-frame their limitations and weaknesses in a positive light
  • Communicate with mentors and others in their network to arrange for letters of recommendation and other support materials

Cross-disciplinary genre expectations
    • Understand how competitive applicants develop content or subject matter in ways that meet the expectations of the funding review committee
    • Outline, organize, and coordinate their application materials
    • Articulate the significance of research topics to the field
    • Describe research methods in a clear and credible way
    • Frame, position, and weigh propositions in a coherent discussion
    • Articulate the value and contribution of their education, research, and career goals to the field
    • Critically evaluate and refine their application writing according to academic expectations
    • Understand the organization, communicative goals, and writing strategies of funding application genres (e.g., scholarships, fellowships, and grants)

    Scholarly communication conventions
    • Differentiate between writing for scholarship and fellowship applications and research or project grant applications (e.g., scholarship and fellowship applications focus on the applicant and their interests, academic/professional development, and short- and long-term goals)
    • Understand the scope, aims, audience, and quality of awards and identify appropriate funding opportunities
    • Understand ethical issues in scholarly writing
    • Understand application requirements and the selection process

    Academic and professional development
      • Identify academic writing conventions using scholarly resources
      • Locate literature relevant to students’ research focus using library search engines and resources
      • Effectively use writing technologies (e.g., electronic collections of texts, search engines for linguistic data)

      Are you seeking funding for research or field study? Contact Iowa State University's Coordinator of Nationally Competitive Awards, John Milstead (milstea5@iastate.edu), to learn about prestigious funding opportunities. Then, get individual feedback on your application documents from CCE's Competitive Funding consultant.

       

       

      Non-Disclosure Agreements

      To ensure the confidentiality of all graduate students and postdoc writers, all CCE consultants sign non-disclosure agreements agreeing to keep private all information and results they view in a consultation.