[music] [students talking] >> STUDENT: We thought it was less effective in how they presented it. >> VOICEOVER: It's a place where good writers can become great writers. A hub of inspiration and innovation, it focuses on writing, communication, and rhetoric. >> DR SUSAN THOMAS: We aim to teach writing by helping students plug into that first canon of classical rhetoric, which is invention or discovery. So by helping them learn about possible topics available to them and helping them discover, as Aristotle said, the available means of persuasion in a given situation. >> STUDENT: That's not really using rhetoric to convince an audience of an argument. >> VOICEOVER: Established in 2011, the Hub's designed to boost and expand students' communication abilities to meet the demands of a fast-changing, connected world. >> DR THOMAS: So we like to look at social media, places where students can have conversations online. We do all of our assessments online, we use online textbooks. We aim to make writing accessible and easy for students. >> VOICEOVER: Departing from convention, the Writing Hub supports collaboration and peer review, equipping students with on-the-job expertise like how to argue. >> STUDENT: We strongly argue that there should be a legal defence for children. >> DR THOMAS: We are discovering a disconnect between the way writing is taught in the university via the sole-authored essay and the way that it happens in the workplace with a number of people working on a writing project to a specific deadline. >> ALEXANDER: Peer review and collaboration allows you to end up with a much more convincing and strong argument in that you've had multiple inputs into it. No matter how able you are at looking for faults in your argument, there'll always be one that you can't find. >> VOICEOVER: At the Hub's drop-in sessions, students at all levels are helped with their style and composition, designed to make their writing shine. >> DR BEN MILLER: Drop-in sessions involve one-on-one consultations between trained Student Writing Fellows and students who might drop by to find out things they can work on in their academic writing. The one-on-one component of that is essential because the approach we practice focuses on getting students to realise what choices they might have in their academic writing. The Writing Hub's open to students in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Initially, students probably think that it's for people who are struggling and don't know how to write. But what we're finding more and more is that students who are quite capable writers are finding a lot of support and help to become even better writers. >> VOICEOVER: Student Writing Fellows are trained to teach the principles and practice of collaborative writing and communication. Through mentoring and reflection, students achieve their writing goals. >> GAYATRI: The thing that students like the most about the drop-in sessions is that it's so personal. We get a lot of comments saying that it's great to have someone that understands what they're going through or what the problems are with their writing. And because we're also able to offer our own personal experiences, we can also tutor by analogy. In those sessions, people come in for everything from ideas to drafts to outlines to actually marked essays as well. >> JAIMIE: It's just a helpful resource that is there just as a soundboard and a clarification. Instead of emailing a teacher the night before something's due, you can drop in and you can talk it through. Just clarifying ideas really helps. >> DR MILLER: The Writing Hub looks to empower students so that it's students who are figuring out what they need to do in their writing at university and what they need to achieve. >> MARIAM: The Writing Hub has helped me understand what I do like writing about. What my arguments are. How I want to argue, and for what reasons. >> ALEXANDER: I found it to be a great source of inspiration and a great source of input on my writing. >> JAIMIE: Writing comes into everything we do at uni and it's just integral to learn it. [music]