How It Works

Need help completing a writing assignment? The CCBC Online Writing Lab (OWL) can help. Staffed by English department faculty, OWL provides free writing assistance to students on all phases of writing.

CCBC students who are registered for a class can submit to OWL 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, except when the college is closed for winter break, summer break or holidays.

Step 1

Email writing directly to Prof. Jo Darden-Obi at jdarden@ccbcmd.edu. Please include as much information with your submission as you can, and be sure to include an accurate email address.
  • Include a copy of the assignment you were given, or briefly describe it.
  • Think about your writing strengths and challenges and decide what kind of feedback you are interested in getting. Do you need help with a main idea or thesis sentence? Do you have questions about organization and development? Do you have questions about punctuation and grammar? Include this information in the submission form.
  • Copy and paste your essay into the text box.

Step 2

Within 48-72 hours an OWL faculty member will respond to your submission at the email address you entered. Print out the feedback you receive from OWL, so you can use it as a guide for your rewrite.

Step 3

Once you have used the OWL feedback to create a better draft of your assignment, you might want OWL to take a second look at what you’ve written. No problem! Send your “revised draft” to OWL and we will be happy to review it.

Step 4

Use OWL up to two times per week and for any of your writing assignments, not just those from English classes.

Reminders

Be sure to submit your essay to the OWL well in advance of your assignment due date. Remember to allow 48-72 hours for a response from OWL.

Professors please note that while OWL is available to help individual students, we cannot accommodate an entire class worth of assignments. So, please do not make use of OWL as a requirement for any given assignment.