Suggestions for Students and Faculty
Suggestions for Students
Visit the center early in your work on your writing project. Do not wait until the day your paper is due, as the tutors can do very little to help you revise and rethink your paper at that late time.
Bring your textbook, your assignment sheet, and all of the work you have done for your writing project with you. Keep all of your material for each assignment together so that you can easily find whatever you want to talk about with the tutor.
Organize your class work so that you can find it. Keep your work for each course in separate notebooks or in separate sections of your notebook. Label and date your class notes and each draft you write.
Take command of your own tutorial. Remember that the tutors want to help you learn, but they cannot write your paper for you or correct it.
Suggestions for Faculty
In general, treat the center as a comfortable and supportive place where students can write and talk about their writing with experienced writers. Remember, it is not a place of last resort for the hopeless, but a resource for all student writers. In particular, you can:
Urge students to take their written assignment, their textbook(s), and all planning notes and drafts with them when they visit the center.
Reassure students that you want them to use the center's resources. You may want to build in a bonus point system for center visits as you will receive weekly reports of students who have had tutorials.
In your comments on papers, try to point out what the student has done well. Also try to indicate specific revisions that the student needs to make to fulfill the assignment. Avoid writing "Go to the Writing Center." without giving further guidance.
Urge students not to wait until the day a paper is due to visit the center.
Insist that students organize and label their work so that they can find it and know what it is.
If you use your own marking or abbreviation system, try to make it easy to decipher.
Questions
If you have any questions, please contact the Writing Center.
