The Student Success Center on the San Jacinto College Central Campus will host a writing workshop titled How to Paper to help students learn the basics of writing an academic essay.

Dawn Shedd, the Center’s director, said all students required to complete written assignments for their coursework benefit from the workshop through increased confidence in their ability to construct an academic essay. Moreover, she added, “writing skills are imperative after college,” pointing to the fact that most employers expect potential employees to be competent writers.

The workshop covers many topics including how to format and organize an essay, preparing a thesis statement, introduction, and conclusion, as well as citations, transitions, and analysis.

How to Paper started approximately three years ago in an effort to reach students with weak writing skills. Since then, the initiative evolved into a workshop series conducted each semester on a range of subjects directly related to writing.

Meanwhile, Shedd said student feedback indicates they find the workshop helpful but since she does not have access to participants’ writing assignment grades, it is difficult to gauge their level of success. Nevertheless, she intends to keep working toward widening the series’ reach by expanding student accessibility.

“My hope is to eventually use the workshops to create short five-minute clips about specific topics that can be uploaded to YouTube,” she said, “so that students can access the information whenever it is needed.”

How to Paper: Writing an Academic Essay will take place from noon until 1 p.m. on Oct. 10 in the Ceremonial Room (Room 163) of the Lee Davis Library (C21) on the Central Campus.