Writing center helps students polish their prose

Face-to-face and online tutoring are available by appointment for any students, faculty and community members who need help with their writing through the writing center in Room 203 of Gonzales Hall.

Writing Center Director Frances Crawford said with a laugh, "Writing is hard."

Crawford said the center provides an "engaging" process, as opposed to merely an editing service. Tutoring sessions are a partnership, with tutors using a "peer-tutoring concept." Depending on where the student is with their work, they receive necessary feedback and advice to get the best possible piece of writing.

"(Tutors) are always ready and waiting," political science freshman Jonah Thompson said Tuesday. He appeared ready to get work done, laptop out, pulling different items to work on out of his bag. Thompson said he comes to the writing center as an alternative to the library, to work on "any and all essays," or just to do research in a quiet atmosphere.

"I expect it to be quiet and peaceful, where I don't have to worry about being interrupted." Thompson said there should be more "environments focused on writing" throughout the campus.

Crawford said faculty and students both have asked if the center could have longer hours. The center is open 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 8 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Friday. The computers lining the walls, and the slew of tutors readily available, are just keeping up with the demand for the center's services, she said.

Jon McCarter, writing center assistant director and English lecturer, said the center expects to get busier as the semester progresses. While scrolling through the never-ending appointments on his computer screen, he said appointment times were filling fast.

McCarter said he has seen a positive response in his own English 1301, Freshman Composition 1, students who he knows to have visited the center.

"Look at the results," he said, indicating research done earlier in the year over the pilot center that preceded the current writing center.

The results of the research, according to an Aug. 28 e-mail from Crawford to the campus faculty, indicate that if a student comes to the center three or more times in a semester and that if at least one of those visits was early in the semester, the writer has a strong chance of seeing a significant improvement in grades.

In the same e-mail, Crawford wrote that "online tutoring is based in Second Life, a virtual world program that allows students to create an avatar and meet with our tutors' avatars online, in real time, with voice."

Assistants in the writing center can help students create their avatars and help them get the Second Life software downloaded to their home computers.

To schedule an appointment, visit the writing center in Room 203 of Gonzales or call 486-1433.