How to Ask for Help in the Write Site

Written by Cameron Henderson

The struggle: you’re sending your paper into the Write Site, and when you get to the section marked “specific questions/concerns,” you have no idea what to say. “Grammar, I guess? APA formatting? I don’t know, can you just tell me if it’s good?” If you’ve done this, you’re definitely not alone. Students often struggle to formulate questions to ask about their own writing when seeking assistance at writing centers. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of wording: “I don’t know how to say it, but I have a general idea of what I’m worried about.” Sometimes, students come in unsure of what they need at all. Here’s my main piece of advice: don’t stress too much about these feelings. Every writer wonders at some point if they’re doing it right. With a little guidance and a tiny crash course on the things we focus on here, you can start getting an idea of the kinds of questions that will best help you in your individual writing process.

Where to start:

Here’s the thing you need to know about the Write Site: we are not an editing service here to clean up your paper. We’re writing consultants. That is, our job is to give you feedback to help you improve your writing overall, not just in an individual paper. We like to look at the overall structure, or what we call the “global concerns” of the assignment, before we hone in on grammar mistakes. Our feedback is designed both to address the needs of your submission and to give you an idea of how to make your next paper even better.

With that said, here are a couple of ideas for where to start when considering what kinds of things to put in the “specific questions/concerns” section of your Write Site submission. Forewarning: these suggestions are not going to deal with grammar and formatting. Anyone can ask for help with grammar and formatting. Sometimes, I will admit, grammar and formatting are the main things that need to be addressed in a submission, though usually not. Most of the time, there is something else that needs to be addressed before looking at sentence-level errors. You may or may not already have a sense of what; following these two simple pieces of advice can help you figure out what to ask for to help us help you:

1. Check the rubric for question ideas

Your professor will often attach a rubric with specific requirements for the paper. Some of these requirements will deal with the content you need to include in your essay, but many of them also deal with the professor’s structural preferences. You can look at the rubric for inspiration for questions about argument, support, your thesis statement, audience, and purpose. Your tutors would appreciate your effort even if you take the wording directly from the rubric to check if you’ve done something well.

2. Read up on some of the writing lingo your writing consultants are using

You don’t have to know everything. Heck, you don’t even have to memorize the terms we use here in the writing center, though it wouldn’t hurt you as a writer. Being aware of some of the underlying structures of an essay will not only help you feel more confident asking your tutors specific questions, but will also improve your confidence as a writer. Knowing what’s going on behind the curtain makes the process of writing feel much less slippery. This handout here is a simple explanation of some basic terms (these are what we mean when we say “global concerns”) and a few example questions you can ask in your submissions. Feel free to save it for later and even copy+paste the questions into your submission forms.

That’s it, that’s my advice. Not too complicated, but hopefully you find it helpful. The first step, of course, is making your appointment–for that (and this next bit is specific to TWU students, though the rest of my advice is for anyone thinking of using writing center services at their school), you need to have a WCOnline account set up using your TWU email address. When you create your appointment, you have the option of selecting an online OWL, which is the type of appointment where you send your essay in and we send it back via email with our commentary and suggestions. There’s no live component to this type of appointment, so it’s great for those with scheduling conflicts. We love to have one or two specific questions to focus on during these appointments, since you won’t have a chance to refine your questions during our reading. You can also make an OWLive appointment, which is an online video meeting where we look over your paper with you in real time. It’s good to have an idea of what you’d like to focus on and what kind of feedback you want, but you’ll also have a chance to come up with more questions during your conversation with your consultant. Finally, you can make a live appointment in the Write Site and come to us in person for the same type of real-time tutoring. Again, the Write Site offers a tutoring service, not an editing service, so don’t expect simple revisions. Expect commentary and suggestions for ways to improve your writing and help you along in your process.

Thanks for reading, good luck, and we hope you have a great semester!

Reflections on a Writing Center

Written by Kathleen Irwin

How long have we been in self-isolation? Too long, if you ask me. So long that I’ve started to reflect on my time working in a writing center. I started my graduate career in a writing center and now I’m back after teaching for two or so years while working on my doctorate. There are so many things the writing center has done for me, and it’s changed me in so many ways. I honestly believe that if I didn’t start out working in a writing center, I don’t know if I would’ve decided to get my PhD.

Not all writing centers are the same. Every single one is unique with its own school of thought, work dynamic, and atmosphere.  That’s one of the perks of having worked in more than one. Both were incredibly different from each other, and yet similar in many ways as well. My first experience as a writing center tutor was hectic, hurried, and theoretically and pedagogically engaging. I learned about the Socratic method, indirect tutoring, and I was introduced to the Writing Center Journal and Praxis, journals I still gobble up when a new issue comes out.

My identity as a tutor began to take form there; I was a helper, a guide, not a teacher. And yet my face to face sessions (the only kind we had) helped shape my identity as an instructor and the importance of communication with one’s students. If you are in graduate school and you have the opportunity, I highly suggest working at a writing center. For some reason I have met people in graduate school who scoff at the idea of working at a writing center and prefer being a GTA or research assistant. While both of those are valuable, working at a writing center was integral to my success in grad school. I learned to be a better tutor, communicator, and instructor.

That being said, my time as an instructor has been incredibly valuable to my second and most recent tenure at the TWU Write Site. I became more confident about myself and my abilities when I became a teacher here at TWU. I was able to create a teaching persona that helped me to (metaphorically) stand tall, be confident in my abilities, and assure students that I knew what I was doing. I also learned to project my voice as a teacher and use multimodal composition strategies and integrate them into my tutoring style. I loved that I was able to merge multimodal composition, free writing and writing center theory into both my tutoring and instructing styles.

Working at the TWU Write Site has given me the opportunity to see past students of mine flourish and grow as tutors. I currently work with two former students of mine. It’s glorious, seeing them tutor with a passion and do such a spectacular job of being tutors. It reassures me, as their former instructor, that I taught them well. As their now co-worker and friend, I get to see them come up with brilliant ideas and do things I would never have been able to do at their age. Before our self-isolation and quarantine, I got to go into work and experience a camaraderie with every single tutor at the Write Site.

Now that we all work online, I get to witness everyone of them helping each other out, lifting others up, and adapting our technological situation to the fullest in our online appointments. We check in with one another, call and text each other off duty, and make jokes about toilet paper. Writing Centers don’t just teach us valuable lessons about pedagogy or theory but build lasting friendships in times of crisis – something I’m sure everyone needs right now.