Creating a Self-Access Academic Writing Centre at a Trilingual University: What Have We Learned in the First Three Years?

Abstract

The Centre for Academic Writing at the trilingual (German–Italian–English) Free University of Bozen-Bolzano was created in 2021 as a means of supporting student writing at the institution and for carrying out research in academic writing and communication in plurilingual contexts. It offers a number of self-access services, specifically credit-bearing courses, writing groups, and a Helpdesk service. This paper provides an outline of these services, discussing challenges encountered, how they have been addressed and how the services have evolved as a result. It offers a particular focus on the Helpdesk service, with an analysis of the kinds of queries most commonly received from the students. The data suggests that students most frequently access the helpdesks having received negative feedback from a supervisor on their writing, and most generally have queries relating to structure and citations, with linguistic issues rarely addressed.