Getting Ready for a Tutoring Session

Writing tutors cannot write, proofread, or correct your paper for you. Instead, we will review your assignment and your paper with you to discover any problems you might be having, then help you address those problems yourself. Here are some things that you can do to get the most out of your session:

Set your own goals for the session

Think about what kind of help you really want from the writing tutor. Do you, for example, want to develop ideas that are already pretty well organized, or do you have boatloads of ideas but no boats to arrange them in? If you set a rough agenda of items to cover in the session, you can be sure to get the most out of your time in the writing center.

Bring both your assignment and any work you've done so far

If you haven't actually written anything, that's ok. Bring your questions.

If possible, bring along your instructor's assignment sheet, a description of the assignment from your textbook, or your class notes.

Here are some other things you can do to get ready:

• Think carefully about the assignment. Does your draft satisfy the assignment? You might list some characteristics your paper should have in order to meet the goals of the assignment.
• Mark sections of yoru draft that you're unsure of and would like to concentrate on. Write down your questions. If you can pinpoint specific sections or sentences in your draft, you won't have to wait for the tutor to find them.
• Try outlining what you've written so far. Outlining is a good way of rethinking the overall organization of your paper.
• Think about comments and suggestions that have been made on other papers that you've written. You can significantly cut down your writing and revising workload and can use your session time more efficiently by getting a handle on your instructor's comments.