Writing (W) 

1. Courses in this category are offered at the 3000 level or below, and are open to all students.
2. Courses in this category provide multiple opportunities across the term for students to write and to receive careful feedback on writing assignments totaling 3600-4500 words. (This count is equivalent to approximately 12-15 full pages of text, double-spaced, in Times New Roman 12, not including tables, figures, illustrations, bibliographies, and other extra-textual components). In courses that focus on writing and editing and require multiple drafts, this total may include submissions that have been extensively revised and resubmitted.
3. Courses in this category address the writing process and provide opportunities to reflect on this process.
4. Courses in this category focus substantially on writing. In courses for which students submit collaborative projects, each student must also be evaluated and receive substantial feedback on writing produced independently.
5. Courses in this category use feedback and commenting language common to all SMU writing courses.
6. Courses in this category include an assessment assignment that requires students to demonstrate each of the skills in the Writing Assessment Rubric (below). This assessment assignment should be one of the following: an essay, a research paper, or an essay question on an exam.

1. Students will present ideas in clear, well-organized writing that meets the assignment’s genre and the needs of its audience.
2. Students will use critical reasoning skills relevant to the assignment’s purpose.
3. Students will demonstrate knowledge of the stylistic conventions, and where applicable, citation style and formatting appropriate to the course or assignment.

Students may apply to fulfill the W requirement through a co-curricular activity. These criteria apply to experiences that meet the W curricular requirement and describe the characteristics of the experience, the steps a student must follow to petition the experience for approval, and the number and types of assignments students must submit to satisfy the requirement.

1. Activities in fulfillment of this requirement must be approved in advance. Students must submit a pre-approval petition ad must obtain verification of participation.
2. Student experiences must involve 15 hours of engaged interaction such as an internship, an engaged learning project, independent research, or work assisting a faculty member. For activities completed after matriculation at SMU, a faculty mentor must provide detailed feedback on the student’s written work.
3. This written work must involve a minimum of three opportunities across the duration of the experience for students to write, and must total 3600-4500 words (approximately 12-15 full pages, double-spaced, in Times New Roman 12). It may include reflective genres such as blogs, journals, and first-person essays that record, describe, analyze, and evaluate the experience, but may also include other genres relevant to the experience. Such writing must be evaluated in accordance with the characteristics of well-organized writing, whether or not that evaluation includes a grade.
4. Students fulfilling Writing through an activity must submit EITHER copies of all written work completed as part of the activity, or, in cases where that is not possible (such is in cases where an activity is completed prior to matriculation at SMU), a written reflection of at least 1000 words that responds to the following prompt:

Please describe in detail the activity you used to complete the Writing requirement. In your reflection, answer the following questions. How did you meet the requirement of completing 3600-4500 words of writing? Who was the audience for your written work? What resources did you use to understand how best to improve your writing? How did you incorporate drafts and revisions into your writing process? Who provided feedback on your writing? How did your ability to communicate information in writing improve?

1. Audience: The intended reader or community of readers.
2. Citation style: E.g., AP, APA, Chicago, IEEE, MLA, or others produced for professional written work.
3. Critical reasoning: Following the lead of John Dewey, critical reasoning is the “active, persistent, careful consideration of a belief or supposed form of knowledge in light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends.” More specifically, those who engage in critical reasoning analyze, conceptualize, interpret, synthesize, or evaluate objects of study, and ground their claims in appropriate internal evidence or external sources. Critical reasoning promotes the values of clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, validity, depth, breadth, and fairness.
4. Diction: Aptness of word choice, considering not only precision but also degree of formality and correct usage.
5. Formatting: Matters of document preparation specified in the assignment, if any.
6. Genre: The kind of writing assigned, including but not limited to research papers; persuasive, analytical, and interpretive essays; literature reviews; proposals; creative writing; conference presentations; business plans; risk assessments; news releases; news reporting; formal reflection essays; and blogs.
7. Internal evidence: The materials within a work that, when analyzed, reveal the relations of its parts to the whole.
8. Sources: Works of art, computer code, peer-reviewed scholarship, data, public records, authoritative reference works, histories, experience, oral histories, electronic media, or other forms of knowledge accepted by scholars and practitioners in relevant fields.
9. Stylistic conventions: General practices or explicit guidelines regarding abbreviations, contractions, technical language, pronoun choices, the presence or absence of self- referentiality, the manner of integrating quotations, and other matters that meet the objectives of the assignment and course.
10. Well-organized: Writing that suggests it has been edited before submission. Characteristics include but are not limited to appropriate diction, sentence clarity, paragraph cohesion, and the set of grammatical, syntactic, punctuation, and spelling patterns emphasized in the first-year Writing and Reasoning sequence (WRTR 1312 and 1313).
11. Writing process: The stages of writing, including pre-writing activities, drafting, editing, revising, and when relevant, the work of finding appropriate sources and integrating them into one’s understanding.

Students may use pre-matriculation transfer coursework, concurrent enrollment, dual-credit, and test credit (AP or IB) to satisfy Graduation requirements. The coursework must be college-level, credit-bearing work, taken and passed for a letter grade. Students must receive SMU transfer credit for the course.

Courses that transfer in with an SMU equivalent number (for example FREN 2401) will automatically satisfy any Proficiency & Experience requirements fulfilled by the course. The same is true for many courses on the listed on the SMU Transfer Equivalency Guide. 

Courses that transfer in with generic course numbers (for example, ENGL 10XX) will not automatically satisfy Proficiency & Experience requirements and must be petitioned using the Proficiency & Experience (PE) Fulfillment Verification petition.

Students must submit one petition for each graduation requirement, even if they are using a single course to petition multiple requirements. Students may use a single course to satisfy up to three Proficiency & Experience requirements (assuming the course meets the criteria for all three).  

How to petition generic transfer coursework:

1. Fill out the Petition for Alternative Fulfillment, selecting the requirement they are hoping to fulfill and checking the second option that says “I am a current or transfer student, and I am requesting fulfillment through a dual-credit or transfer course.”
2. Attach a complete syllabus which includes a daily schedule, grade breakdown, assignments, and assigned readings.
3. Attach a copy of the Transfer Evaluation Report (TER), showing that the course being petitioned has transferred to SMU for credit. Visit my.SMU > Academics > Request Transfer Evaluation
4. Attach a brief supporting statement, using the provided template, that explains how the course fulfills the Proficiency & Experience being petitioned.

Petitions are electronic and are usually reviewed within two weeks of receipt. Students should not assume that a petition has been completely processed until they receive a formal notification of approval or denial from the Office of General Education via The Common Curriculum email (theccmail@smu.edu). The formal notification, in cases of approval, follows the formal update to the students Degree Progress Report (DPR), noting that the petitioned requirement is satisfied.

Use the course search options below to find Writing-tagged courses at SMU. Following successful completion of the course, your Degree Progress Report (DPR) will be updated to reflect satisfying this graduation requirement. Learn how to find tagged courses below via one of two means. 

Search courses on the Common Curriculum website:

1. Go to Course Search on the SMU Common Curriculum website
2. Click Filter by Graduation Requirements and select Writing

Search courses in my.SMU:

1. Go to my.smu.edu and select “Students”
2. Login using your username and password
3. Once logged into your Student Dashboard, select Class Information on the left-hand side bar
4. Under Class Information, select Advanced Class Search
5. In the Search Criteria boxes:
   1. select the term you want to take the class
   2. in Course Attribute, select Common Curriculum P and E
   3. in Course Attribute Value, select Writing
6. Select Search and the available courses will be displayed

Students may apply to fulfill the W requirement through a co-curricular activity. These criteria apply to experiences that meet the W curricular requirement and describe the characteristics of the experience, the steps a student must follow to petition the experience for approval, and the number and types of assignments students must submit to satisfy the requirement.

Before the Individual Activity:

1. Activities in fulfillment of this requirement must be approved in advance. Students must submit a pre-approval petition ad must obtain verification of participation.

During the individual activity:

1. Student experiences must involve 15 hours of engaged interaction such as an internship, an engaged learning project, independent research, or work assisting a faculty member. For activities completed after matriculation at SMU, a faculty mentor must provide detailed feedback on the student’s written work.
2. This written work must involve a minimum of three opportunities across the duration of the experience for students to write, and must total 3600-4500 words (approximately 12-15 full pages, double-spaced, in Times New Roman 12). It may include reflective genres such as blogs, journals, and first-person essays that record, describe, analyze, and evaluate the experience, but may also include other genres relevant to the experience. Such writing must be evaluated in accordance with the characteristics of well-organized writing, whether or not that evaluation includes a grade.

After the Individual Activity:

1. Students fulfilling Writing through an activity must submit EITHER copies of all written work completed as part of the activity, or, in cases where that is not possible (such is in cases where an activity is completed prior to matriculation at SMU), a written reflection of at least 1000 words that responds to the following prompt:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Please describe in detail the activity you used to complete the Writing requirement. In your reflection, answer the following questions. How did you meet the requirement of completing 3600-4500 words of writing? Who was the audience for your written work? What resources did you use to understand how best to improve your writing? How did you incorporate drafts and revisions into your writing process? Who provided feedback on your writing? How did your ability to communicate information in writing improve.

Sometimes students complete, or desire to take, an SMU course which was not tagged with the desired Proficiency & Experience, but after reviewing the Student Learning Outcomes, Supporting Skills, Course Content Criteria (outlined above), they believe they may have satisfied the requirement. Use this process below to petition credit for the graduation requirement. 

Current SMU students who wish to take an SMU course that they believe has activities that satisfy this Proficiency & Experience, must submit, prior to beginning the course:

1. The Proficiency & Experience (PE) Pre-Approval petition and request individual activity-based fulfillment.
2. Attach a complete syllabus which includes a daily schedule, grade breakdown, assignments, and assigned readings.
3. A detailed supporting statement, using the provided template, of how the activities in the course meet the requirements for Community Engagement.

Upon completion of the course and a posting of the student's grade, students must submit:

1. Fill out the Proficiency & Experience (PE) Fulfillment Verification petition.
2. A copy of the student's Degree Progress Report (DPR) with the letter grade of the course. 
3. Attach a complete syllabus which includes a daily schedule, grade breakdown, assignments, and assigned readings.
4. A final supporting statement, using the provided template, which explores the service opportunity, the student’s participation in it, and the ways in which the experience has impacted the student in the identified areas.