| What are the hours
of the Writing Center?
Where is the Writing Center?
Who can get help at the Writing Center?
Do I need an appointment?
Can I make an appointment?
How long is a tutoring session?
Can I have more than one session in a day?
What happens in a tutoring session?
What kind of writing can I get help with?
Do I have to have a complete draft of my paper to
get help?
Will you proofread or edit my paper?
Can I leave my paper with you for corrections?
What if I can't go to the Writing Center during business
hours?
I'm a graduate student. Can I get help at the
Writing Center?
What are the hours of the Writing Center?
The Writing Center is open Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.,
and Saturday and Sunday from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Please be aware that tutors only work during normal business
hours, and all tutoring sessions end when the Writing Center closes. If
you do not have an appointment,
there often is a wait for tutoring, so plan to arrive soon enough
to get the help you need.
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Where is the Writing Center?
The Writing Center is in Room 411 on the fourth floor of the Central
Library. From the elevators, walk forward to the wall enclosing the study
rooms and then turn right. The Writing Center door will be in front of
you at the end of the hall. From the stairs, turn left and walk to the
end of the hall.
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Who can get help at the Writing Center?
Any UTA student can get help at the Writing Center. The Writing Center
was created by the English Department to help students taking English
1301 and 1302 classes, and most of our policies have been developed considering
the writing required in those classes. However, other types of undergraduate
writing can be brought to the Writing Center, including speech assignments,
lab reports, and essays for English and other classes. In addition, we
will help you with personal essays for applications for scholarships,
graduate programs, and law and medical school. We will help graduate students
with writing, but please see our guidelines for
graduate work.
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Do I need an appointment?
We prefer that you either call us at 817 272-2601 or stop by the Writing Center to make an appointment;
however, if you drop in for a tutorial and a tutor is available, she or he will
be happy to help you.
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How long is a tutoring session?
Tutoring sessions last for a maximum of thirty minutes. You can maximize
the efficiency of your tutoring session by preparing some questions in
advance. If you don't know what to ask, though, that's fine. If you need
more help, you can sign up and wait for another session.
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Can I have more than one session in a
day?
Not usually. Students are generally limited to one session per day.
However, if, for example, you have a session early in the day in which
you and a tutor brainstorm ideas for a paper and you return later that
day with a draft of the paper, you may be allowed a second session. A
second session in the same day requires approval of either the director
or assistant director of the Writing Center.
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What happens in a tutoring session?
Basically, that's up to you. You can ask questions you have or ask tutors
to suggest things to work on at any stage of the writing process, from
brainstorming to final draft. Tutors can help you think through your ideas
before you start writing, develop a topic, get started writing, continue
writing if you get stuck, help you decide on revisions, and learn how
to proofread and edit your own paper. Tutors can also help you cite sources
and avoid plagiarism.
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What kind of writing can I get help with?
Any essay, project, or report you are writing for an undergraduate class;
application essays for scholarships or graduate programs; job application
letters and resumes; and creative or personal writing. However, we absolutely
cannot tutor any part of any exam. If you are a graduate student, see
this question.
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Do I have to have a complete draft of my
paper to get help?
Absolutely not. Sometimes getting started is the hardest part! And we've
all been stuck at some point in the writing process. Bring in your assignment
prompt and whatever you have, and we'll do our best to get you on your
way.
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Will you proofread or edit my paper?
The short answer to this question is no. The longer answer is that we
will try to help you become a better proofreader and editor of your own work. The goal of college
writing is to attain a high level of proficiency in writing the academic
essay for which there are particular writing conventions. Part of
the tutoring process involves helping you identify errors in regard to
these conventions, but we will then teach you how to correct some of these errors
so you can correct others yourself during the session and in future writing.
Our goal is to make you a better writer, and part of being a good writer
is being able to proofread and edit your own work as much as possible.
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Can I leave my paper with you for corrections
and pick it up later?
No. We tutor people, not papers. You must be present in order to learn
from the tutoring session.
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What if I can't go to the Writing Center
during business hours?
You can submit a specific question about citations or grammar in a sentence
or two through online tutoring. You can also submit papers of no more
than ten pages or section of an essay of no more than ten pages and ask for general suggestions
on higher-order issues such as focus, thesis, organization, or support. See the page regarding Online
Tutoring for more information.
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I'm a graduate student. Can I get
help at the Writing Center?
We will help graduate students with writing tasks, although there are
some restrictions we must place on help we give graduate students because
of our primary mission to help undergraduate writers. Before graduate
students enter the University, they are expected to have a highly competent
level of writing skill, so we focus mostly on tutoring undergraduate students
who are still learning. However, graduate students can bring work to the
Writing Center if they keep in mind these guidelines:
- Identify problem sections before your session. Graduate students
especially should make an effort to prepare for tutoring sessions by
making a list of questions they would like a tutor's help with.
- We cannot tutor theses and dissertations except in five-page sections
(the length of an average freshman composition paper).
- Because tutoring sessions last only 30 minutes, tutors often cannot
go through longer graduate papers in one session.
- Graduate faculty often have stringent requirements for work submitted
to them; graduate students should ask their professors any questions
about requirements for assignments and formatting.
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