What does AVOK do?
The Centre for Academic Writing and Communication (AVOK):
- We assist both experienced and inexperienced writers through free, one-to-one, collaborative consultations with trained peer writing consultants in both Estonian and English;
- We provide writing consultants for teachers who offer regular feedback about writing and are able to apply different methods of evaluation and assessment;
- We focus upon the writer and their writing skills rather than merely upon the particular papers they have written – our aim is to teach and promote writing;
- We work with writers at any stage of the writing process for any assignment or project and in any discipline;
- We provide a comfortable, non-threatening, non-judgmental, non-graded environment in which anyone may talk about any aspect of writing or oral presentation; to explore and develop ideas and to become better writers through collaborative learning, while recognizing that writers must take full authority over their own writing;
- We encourage writers to think about the process of writing and take into consideration readers’ expectations and needs, in addition to the content and style of their papers;
- We are ready to use writers’ papers, proposals, reports, abstracts, letters, and theses as a starting point for discussing writing techniques.
- We organize and support writing groups at all levels;
- We offer help with developing and designing writing and communication workshops and courses specific to the needs of departments and faculty, we compile materials about academic writing and communication.