About the Requirement

The Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR) is a University of California requirement. Every first-year student in the UC system must demonstrate their college-level proficiency in writing by fulfilling the ELWR. University-level writing requires students to read carefully, analyze readings with understanding, and draw conclusions about what is read.

There are four writing requirements that all UC Davis students must fulfill: Entry Level Writing, English Composition (8 units; most colleges at UCD require one lower division and one upper division course), and Writing Experience. Satisfaction of the ELWR is a prerequisite to English Composition and Writing Experience courses.

ELWR Timeline

It is important that students complete the ELWR as soon as possible. This requirement acts as a gateway in order to guarantee that students have the knowledge and skills to write at a university level in all of their courses and later on in their professional lives. Students who do not satisfy the ELWR by the end of the third quarter in their first year will be disenrolled from the University per UC Davis Senate Regulation 521. Multilingual students who place into language-intensive multilingual writing courses (UWP 21 and UWP 22) have three quarters plus one quarter for each required English-intensive writing course as outlined by UC Davis Academic Senate Regulation 521e.

Entry Level Writing Courses