Written By: Josh Speer
If you’re enrolled in a communication course–whether written or verbal–at Front Range Community College this semester, it is possible that you’ll need help at one point or another. Whether your questions have to do with grammar or paragraph structure, there are resources to assist you. They are scattered both on our campus and online. Luckily, there are plenty of credible sources out there to help you that are completely free of charge.
The Writing Center at FRCC, located in the Library’s Academic Success Center (L264), is one of the first sources of help (other than your instructor) that you should familiarize yourself with. It functions as a place to help students write better, as well as assisting the faculty in designing and evaluating writing assignments. It is open from Monday – Thursday from 9:00 am – 7:00 pm and Friday from 10:00 am – 1:00 pm, as well as during the summer semester Monday – Thursday from 9:00 am – 3:00 pm. Any student who is registered for a class with a reading, writing, or speaking component is both welcome and encouraged to come seek help when necessary.
We also have an Online Writing Lab (OWL) for our students. You can go online and submit this form to a writing consultant at any hour of any day, but do understand that it may take time for them to get back to you as they only work on weekdays during business hours. That is, of course, with the exception of school holidays. Note that you’re allowed no more than one submission per day and two per week.
Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab (OWL) has more than two hundred individual resources available, not only to Purdue students, but to the overall global community for free. Included are sources to help with the basics such as the writing process, grammar, punctuation, and frequently asked questions (FAQs). There are also resources to help you with specific kinds of writing such as that involved in undergraduate or graduate school applications, as well as both personal letters and newsletter writing.
For those of you enrolled in a class that involves a speaking component, St. Cloud State University has free online help available for preparing presentations. They elaborate on everything from designing and evaluating the assignment to addressing how to handle anxiety when actually delivering the speech. They also have sample assignments available on their website, as well as FAQs they’ve received.
Of course, if you are in a communications class this semester, it is highly advised for you to go to your instructor before anyone or anything else. However, if you have found yourself with questions that your instructor is–for whatever reason–unable to answer, there is an endless sea of resources to help you on the web. Whether you prefer showing up in person to our campus writing lab, submitting your work to our OWL, or getting assistance from the many online sources available to you.
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