Information about Consultations
What to Expect during a Writing Center Consultation
- We ask you questions about the assignment and about your draft in particular.
- We discuss the assignment prompt and your goals/questions for the assignment.
- We read your project (or part of your project) aloud (the consultant or the client might do this).
- We focus on global concerns (thesis statements, organization, whether or not the project responds to the assignment, etc.) AND local concerns (sentence-level and word-level grammatical concepts) as time allows.
- We focus on concerns that appear consistently throughout the draft.
- We offer suggestions for you to consider as you continue working on the project.
What the Writing Center Does Not Do
We do not read lengthy papers in a single session but can focus on smaller sections
of a long paper.
We do not guarantee grades or discuss possible grades.
We do not insist that students make suggested changes to their papers. In fact, we
try to ask questions to help students find their own solutions. We do our best to
avoid appropriating student papers. The final paper should be the student's own.
We do not allow students to drop papers off for editing. We will not provide all of
the proofreading on a paper, although we will help with problem areas and confer with
students. A handbook will be used to teach the concepts needed to the student.