Writing Center
Philosophy
The Writing Center staff is comprised of undergraduate and graduate
students from a wide array of majors and disciplines.
Consultants are dedicated to counseling writers and tailoring
sessions to suit each client’s wants and needs during any stage of
the writing process.
Consultants will not “fix” or “correct” the
student's paper for them because their writing is, after
all, about the student—their voice, their thoughts,
and their style—and we value that. Instead, consultants
will offer advice and ask questions to spur self-reflection and
critical thinking. Consultants seek to foster a student’s
overall growth as a writer rather than focusing solely on specific
assignments, so that future writing may improve.
How We Are Different from the
Tutoring Center
The Writing Center consultant's job is to help your students better
understand how to write, and revise, that paper. If they are
struggling to start the paper, a visit with a consultant will help
them analyze the assignment, begin brainstorming, and come up with
possible approaches. If they're halfway through a paper and
not sure what to do next, a visit with a consultant might help
students rethink the organization, their sense of audience, their
claims, the way they’ve assembled evidence, their use of
counter-arguments, how well they’ve defined their terms.
Consultants also help students identify recurring errors, and try
to explain them with the help of a grammar handbook.