Great success has resulted from profs bringing their classes to
the WC for short tours/introductions to the WC. It’s best when a
few WCers can give these presentations.
Here are some talking points you shouldn’t miss when giving one
of these 10-15 minute tours (I’ll add some comments after each
point, and you should get comfortable putting things in your own
words, too):
Start with introducing yourself, your
major, background, and how you came to work in the WC.
The rest of the consultants or
tutors are like me. The staff is comprised of
undergraduates and grad students who know what it’s like to be
students here. We are guides, not experts, and we’re trained to
help you think and talk through writing. Granted, we may have
different experiences that have helped us become effective writers
ourselves, but we want to focus on learning
together.
Now that you know a bit more about me
and the people I work with in the WC. I’d like to say quite a bit
more about the WC. Here’s a breakdown of what we do, why do it and
how you can work with us:
What we do:
We help all writers at any
stage in their writing process (whether they just got the
assignment, or if they think it’s ‘finished’) we work with everyone
from high school students, to people in their first year and on to
graduate students and faculty. We will help anyone with any aspect
of writing like getting started, working with a draft, learning to
revise and proofreading.
Besides tutoring, we have
almost every resource you’d need for
writing in any class. If you’re writing for a psychology
course, we have books that can show you the style those professors
want. If you’re taking a literature course, same thing.
If you’re on campus and just need a
quiet space in which to write, you can work at one of the couches
or tables .
This is also a space where we sponsor
outside writers/artists to share their work, student publications
are often organized in here, student readings are held here…it’s an
artistic/writers’ space you can take advantage
of.
So you might wonder, why do we talk so much? Can’t I just drop
off my paper and get it fixed?
We’re here to help you with your
writing; we’ll work together with you. We will not write or fix
your paper for you because we’re about making you a better writer
by doing it with you, by helping you to learn to talk and
hash out issues that come up with peers. Like most
professional writers, we recognize the importance of understanding
that writing happens in a context, with an
audience, for a purpose, and that insight comes from learning and
conversation. Most writers produce with that in mind—a conversation
with others such classmates, professors, colleagues, friends,
clients, and so on.
We know many of you will want your
grammar checked, and we’re willing to do that.
When you come in, we’ll want to make sure your paper has also
addressed the assignment, offers clear ideas, and is well
organized. Turning in a paper with no errors is pointless if it
doesn’t say something important or doesn’t do what it’s supposed
to. Just focusing on fixing grammar doesn’t often deal with the
core problem: are your ideas unclear because you’re not sure what
you want to say? Or is it because you’re not sure how to put them
together? We’ve noticed, more often than not, people still need to
talk through ideas. Even once that’s been done, hearing
your writing out loud—since that’s one of the ways we
teach proofreading—often makes people consider other, better ways
of communicating what they want to say.
Now you know what we do and why, it’s important to know how to
reach us and what you need to do to make an appointment or session
most successful.
We’ve got an online scheduling system where
they can sign up and view the schedule/make appointments
anytime and from anywhere (you might end the tour by
having a few folks sign up right then and there). Once you’re
registered, you can sign up for face-to-face appointments at Queens
or Staten Island, email
a paper for feedback, or chat live online with a tutor. A
report of your session will automatically be sent to you.
If you can’t make it in for a
face-to-face session, our online services are great options. Our
chat appointments are like AIM or Yahoo or
texting, but you can exchange papers with your consultant. For the
email tutoring, you submit a paper with your questions, and a tutor
usually writes back within a day, during the week.
Please make appointments early. If you
were given 3 weeks to write a paper, it’s probably supposed to take
you that long to organize, write, and revise it. Most folks benefit
from at least two sessions for each paper. We will try to help you
even if you come in just a few hours before something is due, but
you simply might not have enough time to even make revisions and
print out a new copy. We cannot rush through
things just because you didn’t give us time to help.
Please bring any
assignments/drafts/notes you may have, and please carefully read
over any feedback from your professor.
The space was designed for you to
bring/use your own laptop.
Questions?