Writing Services
Our writing consultants can not only help you wherever you are, but they are also trained to assist you during any stage of the writing process, including:
- Brainstorming and selecting a topic
- Understanding your assignment
- Navigating and interpreting professor feedback
- Considering your audience and what expectations they have
- Organizing your ideas and structuring your paper
- Crafting an argument, message, theme, or story
- Integrating sources and considering their effectiveness
- Revising, editing, and formatting your work
- Learning how to use and perform different citation styles
- Clarifying your message and editing your language
One-to-One Support
Writing consultants are trained to facilitate conversation about your writing at any stage of the process, whether in person or online. They ask deep questions about a variety of topics related to you and your assignment, process, and goals. Staying true to a socratic method, they support you in exercising critical thinking skills so you may know more about why you're making choices about your project. Also, they have great advice. Consultants are successful students, and they're very aware of how they learned to succeed. In one-to-one sessions, they can help you find the answers in resources online or in text.
Classroom Support
Consultants are embedded in every section of WRT 150. In this setting, they work alongside students and professors to better support the portfolio crafting process. Typically, consultants are invited into the lab setting, where they develop a style that works best with the instructor and the students (can include, but not limited to: having mini-meetings with students, managing a sign-up sheet for support, wandering the room and providing extemporaneous support, etc.).
Group Facilitation
Writing consultants are trained to facilitate small writing groups, which are made up of individuals writing group papers together, conducting peer review, or are working through brainstorming topics together. These sessions can occur in a workshop model, where consultants come to your class for small group work. This also translates to the ways in which consultants are prepared to support group writing projects. Sometimes, teams of writers have to produce one project collaboratively, and they may come to one of our locations or meet online and work with one consultant at that time.
Frequently Asked Questions
If you would like to learn more about our Writing Center services, please browse through of our Frequently Asked Questions. If you would like additional information or clarification, contact us!
Yes, we will help you with grammar and mechanics. However, consultants will not edit your paper for you. If you come into the writing center to work on grammar and mechanics, a consultant will help you to locate patterns of error and errors that impede communication. The consultant will help you learn how to identify and fix those errors, while helping you learn how to use online and print resources--such as handbooks--in the editing/proofreading process. The expectation is that by focusing time and attention on a few errors in depth, you will leave the writing center more knowledgeable and confident, and that you can continue to work on identifying and fixing those errors in your writing on your own.
Because they are not professors, consultants will not grade your writing or tell you that the writing is "finished" and ready for submission. As experienced readers, trained responders, and good writers themselves, they have many useful suggestions for you to consider when revising, but these suggestions should not be interpreted as "grading" your writing.
Aside from our online, asynchronous email consultation service, all consultations happen with the writer present. Consultants talk (or chat online) with you about your goals for the writing and your plans for revision, so your participation in the session is integral. Consultants will not discuss your paper (content, structure, grammar, etc.) with anyone but you - unless you are present and willing to invite other voices into the conversation about your piece.
Yes - but all students have a limit of two consultations per day. As a standard policy, we find that if we guarantee everyone up to two consultations per day, we can help everyone as fairly as we can. You are allowed to have two consultations everyday that classes are in session & we are open.
Our consultants want to help you; so exceptions to this rule have been made in the past. If you feel you deserve more time, just talk it out with your consultant. Also, it is important to know that there are other peer consulting services that may be able to help you out. To learn more, please visit the Knowledge Market Homepage
After your consultation is over, the writing consultant will walk you through our records-keeping system: session notes. At this time, you will record a basic summary of what was accomplished or planned in your session; after this is completed, this record is sent to your GVSU student email and stored within your Book It account. You are able to then forward your session notes to the professor through the email you received or access them again through Book It. If you're having trouble finding your session notes or are unsure of how to send them to your professor, just reach out to us, and we'll help you out!