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The Writing Center is dedicated
to helping writers take advantage of all opportunities for learning
inherent in the writing process; to that end, we can assist writers
at any stage of the writing process. By working with students
one-on-one or in small groups, tutors can help writers analyze the
rhetorical demands of the writing task, generate and focus ideas at
the prewriting stage, ensure they are addressing the writing
assignment directly and effectively, elaborate and rework a rough
draft after hearing the writer read the draft aloud, discover their
strengths and weaknesses in a particular rhetorical context,
strengthen arguments, spot weak rhetorical choices and make more
effective choices, and address formatting or other surface-level
concerns. At no point do our tutors write these papers for the
students. All writers working in the Writing Center maintain control
of their essays; we simply offer support and feedback and ask
questions they may not have been asking themselves (or may not have
even known to ask themselves).
What can the Writing Center do for me? The Writing Center (or the “Communication Skills Center”) offers students free, one-on-one writing assistance. We welcome all writers, majors, and disciplines--including both undergraduate and graduate students. You can work with us one-on-one, in groups (3-5 writers), or online. Our most requested service is the one-on-one assistance we offer in the Hall of Languages, Room 103. However, we also offer assistance online (http://www7.tamuc.edu/litlang/CSC/index.htm), and we would welcome the opportunity to work with groups developing on similar writing projects. Who will I work with when I visit the Writing Center?
The writing
tutors are graduate and upper-division undergraduate
students selected on the basis of their strong writing
and interpersonal skills. The training process for new
and experienced tutors alike is quite rigorous,
including—among other things—an annual, two-day Tutor
Orientation, an extensive tutor-training manual
specifically designed for them and their needs, a weekly
tutor-training meeting (2.5 hours), multiple
opportunities for evaluation and feedback, and much
discussion of required readings in writing center theory
and practice. I thought only bad writers came to the Writing Center . . .
We work from the
premise that all writers benefit from engaging
conversations with attentive, informed, and caring
“readers” trained to ask probing questions and offer
useful feedback. That’s what we do in the Writing
Center; we offer writers opportunities to bounce ideas
off potential readers before committing them to paper,
to “try out” a draft to see whether it seems clear and
convincing, to explore and discover effective strategies
for revising and editing their own texts, and to push
past writer’s block when it happens. In short, we are
here to help writers help themselves. What does the Writing Center promise NOT to do for students? We will not write the paper for you, but we will do what we can to help you achieve your own goals with our support. We will not supply content or correct usage errors for you, but we will show you invention and editing strategies you may try out with our guidance. We will not learn for you, but we will help you learn from herself. We will not ignore the guidelines of the assignment you are attempting to complete, but we will help you find ways to accomplish your goals in ways that meet the requirements detailed on the assignment sheet. What actually happens in a tutorial session? A typical tutorial might consist of a brief conversation about how the paper was written and how you feel about it. Next, the tutor will likely ask you what you want to focus on in the tutorial. Through our questions, we encourage students to shape the direction of the tutorial session. Sometimes (often) we ask students to read their work to us so they can hear their own words in another context; other times, a tutor will model editing and proofreading strategies that the student can try out later on her own. This means we often do not get through an entire paper in a session but expect the student to complete the work on her own using what she learned in her session. When is it appropriate to come to the Writing Center? Before or after the paper is written? We work with students at any stage of the writing process. Some writers come in with complete drafts (“What do you think of this?” or “Does it make sense to you?”); others come with partial drafts (“Now what do I do?” or “I don’t know where to go next! I’m stuck!”); still others come in with an assignment sheet and nothing else (“Where do I start? I don’t know what to do!”). Sometimes writers come in with a completed draft that includes instructor comments (“I know what she says I need to do with this paper, but I don’t know how to make it happen! What now?”). In other words, you don’t have to wait until the paper is complete before you come in to discuss your work with a writing tutor. How does the Writing Center work with students who need help with grammar and punctuation? When students specifically request assistance with these surface-level issues, we teach them strategies for working with error in their own writing. We generally don’t use drills (worksheets and the like); instead we teach students to identify their own patterns of error and correct them on their own. We direct students to handbooks and online resources they may use in future writing sessions, and we encourage them to develop proofreading strategies that work for them. How can I let my professor know that I've been to the Writing Center? If you know ahead of time that your professor would like to hear about your Writing Center visits, you can request a form from us that summarizes the visit itself and discusses revision plans resulting from the visit. We like for you to have a written record of any tutorial session so you can easily apply the lessons from the session to your own writing after you leave us. Better still may be to tell your professor about your visit and explain to him/her what you worked on while you were there. How can I arrange to see a tutor? You can stop by the Hall of Languages, Room 103 to make an appointment for a later date, drop in to work with a tutor without an appointment, or visit our cybertutor online. Additional Information about Writing Centers US News and World Report includes an interesting article about the ways in which writing centers across the country benefit writers—even very good writers! Please see http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/articles/brief/06helpers.writing_brief.php Last Updated, August 2006 Send questions/comments to Shannon_Carter@tamuc.edu
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