Columbia University’s Writing Center is located in 310 Philosophy Hall. When the year begins, you can use their online scheduler to make appointments with tutors trained to work with you on your writing one-on-one. I have both served as a writing center tutor (years ago!) and made appointments with other tutors to work on my graduate program papers, creative writing, and cover letters for job applications. Writing centers are fantastic! But you probably won’t get much out of an appointment you’re not prepared for, and preparation requires more than showing up with the paper you want a tutor to read. So before your meeting, think about the following:
- Bring your paper, any assignment guidelines that informed that paper, and any assignments (e.g., SOGC) that might be useful for your tutor. If for any reason you’re challenged on what the guidelines state, you’ll have the documents on hand to (a) show your tutor that you are following the instructions for your particular class, and/or (b) ask your tutor to help you follow the instructions for your particular class.
- Make sure you’ve re-read—even annotated!—your work.
- Figure out a concise way to explain the assignment to the tutor, as assignments and expectations differ (even slight variations make a difference, after all!) across classes.
- Identify where you are in your writing process at the moment, and where you need to be for the draft you submit. Try to assess the obstacles you’re facing, and how to balance the choices, goals, and risks you’ve undertaken with overcoming those hurdles.
It may even help to write yourself a short memo, in which you figure out why you’re going to this tutoring session and what you hope to get out of it.
For our purposes right now this will also be helpful to you before engaging in peer review, so keep this post handy if you need to refer back to it!
