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Any member of the Murray State community at any of its campuses -- a student, staff, or faculty member -- may use the Racer Writing Center's free services. We offer a full range of services to distance learning students using various technologies that we are happy to discuss with you upon making an appointment. You must use your murraystate.edu email address when scheduling your appointment. In addition, it is your responsibility to provide accurate information (name, M#, contact information) so that we may verify your university affiliation. If we are unable to do so, your appointment will be canceled.
The Racer Writing Center is NOT an Editing Service
Please remember that the Racer Writing Center is not an editing or proofreading service. We will work with you to improve your own proofreading and editing skills, but we don't simply correct mistakes for you. Proofreading only helps the specific work at hand, treating symptoms while ignoring the problems that cause them. Because the Racer Writing Center focuses on Writing as a process and values improving its clients as writers, we do not proofread or edit.
The Racer Writing Center CANNOT Guarantee Grades
Consultants cannot produce nor predict grades earned by students, nor will consultants speculate about the grade an assignment deserves.
Confidentiality
All Racer Writing Center appointments are treated as confidential and we will not discuss the content of said appointments with anyone but the client involved. For this reason, we do not verify appointments for professors. Students are welcome to share this information with professors, but we leave that up to them.
Avoiding Plagiarism
Plagiarism is a difficult issue for any writing center. Our consultants generally assume that the writing brought to them is the student's own. If there are concerns with how and when research is cited, consultants do point out these concerns and explain the necessity for correct and thorough citations. If a consultant feels that a paper is clearly not the work of the student present for a session and the student resists reworking the potentially plagiarized elements of the assignment, that consultant may cancel the session at his or her sole discretion and report the suspected plagiarism to the Racer Writing Center director.
Validating and/or Requiring Appointments
We do not validate appointments, even for the purposes of extra credit because sessions are confidential. Professors cannot require students to visit the writing center because we do not have a large enough staff to meet this demand. At peak usage times during the semester, your students may not be able to secure an appointment because of our limited resources. In addition, research demonstrates that students benefit more fully when they choose to seek additional help rather than being required to do so.