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Steve Straight

UMPI Writing center is a resource for students to hone their writing and get feedback from fellow students on where they can improve. It has a conversational approach in a relaxed setting. It gives students a chance to make changes to their papers before their due dates. The tutors in the presentation for University Day  noted there is a bowl of candy available to anyone who makes use of their services.

     The goal of the Writing Center is to help with idea development, the orientation of the assignment you bring to them, to make writing flow better and be better structured and to help with grammar and punctuation. So who can benefit from the writing center? In a word, everyone. Writing is not so much a skill as it is a process. The further you go in education, the more writing you will have to do. Tutors try to avoid looking at student’s majors when they come in for help, so that they don’t unfairly assume that someone is a great writer just because they are an English major, or conversely, that they are a poor writer because they are a business major.

     It is important to remember that the writing center tutors are not faculty, but are students themselves. Many students come in expecting them to be authoritative experts who edit their work like a human spell check. They are also not therapists, however if real life issues are involved in your writing, they would certainly be interested in hearing about it. In reality, you are the expert. You know more about your assignment than they do, so effectively get progress out of the writing center, you must give your tutor a fair idea of what the parameters of your assignment are.

     Tutors start with where your strengths are, and focus on what you do well off the bat, instead of what you don’t do well. Then they focus on self determination and help you build where you need to. Rather than telling you what to do, and how to do, they help you improve your writing by making sure you are an equal part of the collaboration and learn from your missteps, instead of simply ignoring them.

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