Consultant of the Year and Other News

What a fine year it was for our Consultants, both graduating and remaining with us into 2023-24. Here are a few highlights. I’m still getting news, so this update supersedes what I shared in our Spring newsletter.

Consultant of the year

Consultant of the Year:

Each year faculty nominate a senior for this honor. Dr. Michelle Kahn nominated Janis Parker, who had been nominated once before, as well as receiving kudos from a student she had assisted.

Janis majored in History at Richmond and will be a graduate student and research assistant at Villanova. There she will work on the Last Seen project, an archive of materials from right after the Civil War. Last Seen focuses on recently enslaved people seeking family members from whom they had been separated. You can learn more about the project here.

Consultant Article Accepted for Publication

I encourage students taking Eng. 383, our class that trains Consultants, to submit final reflective essays to WLN’s Tutor’s Column feature. WLN, nearing its 50th anniversary, remains one of the two most influential journals for theory and practice in our field. Several 383 students have sent in articles, but finally we have a forthcoming publication.

Lillian Tzanev’s “A ‘Wise Moron’ Reflects on Academic Writing and Consultancy” explores a sophomore’s attitude toward writing center work before and after taking our class. I will let you know when the piece appears online and in WLN’s  print edition.

Lillian will not rest on these laurels; she will soon conduct research in Bulgaria exploring anti-abortion theology in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church..

Other Consultant News

  • Tanner Brooks will begin his studies at the University of Richmond School of Law. Furthermore, he will be a lead member of the campaign staff for a Virginia State Senate race this summer into early fall.
  • Susannah Carter will do research with Dr. Rick Mayes about the physician shortage, nurse scarcity, and burnout post-COVID.
  • Luiza Cocito will be a marketing associate at LinkedIn in New York City.
  • Molly Earle just accepted an offer with MARKETview here in Richmond, and she will start next month.
  • Michal Ilouz will be in Richmond this summer to conduct cognitive science research before studying abroad in Melbourne, Australia this Fall.
  • Jess LaForet and Braden Wixted, as well as Joe Essid and Emily Ball, will be trained in neurodiverse pedagogy by Director of Disabilities Services Dr. Cort Schneider. Jess and Braden will become our first disabilities specialist consultants.
  • Kaitlyn Garrett will continue her internship with a Richmond area publisher; in October, she will begin an internship as a writer/journalist for Borgen
  • Brie Grossman will be moving to New York City to work in sales and trading at Barclays.
  • Allison Ngyuen will be traveling to Europe with family after graduation, before beginning dental school at VCU School of Dentistry in July.
  • Andrew LaPrade will be joining the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency as a cartographer.
  • Anna Phillips has received an A&S Summer Research Fellowship to do research at a lab at Tufts University in Boston that studies autism and sexuality/sex education. She is also attending the summer study abroad trip to Perugia, Italy.
  • Jay Welle will take CPA exams this summer, then move to New York to work in External Audit for PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Common First-Year Writing Mistakes

Dr. Greg Cavenaugh of Rhetoric and Communications Studies will work with my trainee Writing Consultants this semester. His First-Year Seminar, “Heroes and Villains” is a great topic, but no matter the subject matter, first-years always make the same errors.

So I asked Dr. Cavenaugh for a list. Here is what he sent. Please send me other issues/concerns you have about first-year writing!

No governing claim/thesis at all.  Alternately, a governing claim stated only as a question.  This more often occurs in reflective writing such as reading journals, but it sometimes appears in more formal assignments.  This problem may well stem from the assumption that writing is simply “stating what I think.”  Scholarly writing is a lengthy process of crafting and revising an argument; “stating what I think” is at best a first step in the creation of an argument.

Several sentences (sometimes multiple paragraphs) of fluff before the author reaches his/her governing claim/thesis.  This may well stem from the notion that scholarly writing is “fancy writing” and that the first few paragraphs of scholarly research are fluff.  When a reader is familiar with the norms of the academic field that an author is addressing, it becomes clear that what students regard as “fluff” is actually essential to the author’s argument.  The reason that a novice reader views these paragraphs as “fluff” is simple unfamiliarity with the academic discipline and the communicative norms of that interpretive community.  In Grad School Essentials, David Shore sums up this concern as, “Get to the bloody point.  Please.”

Essid’s note: I call such “fluff” a “March of History” introduction, and it seems to come from public-speaking experience in some cases. You  know it: “As soon as humans stood erect, they gazed upon the night sky in wonder. For millennia we have wondered about the Moon. Finally, in 1969 we went there…” would be a typical paper about Neil Armstrong in my FYS, The Space Race. -10 points and a week to cut to the chase with a revision, please!

Paragraphs that run across multiple pages.  From the early 2000’s to about two or three years ago, I would ask students, “How long is a paragraph?” and get back a disturbing answer.  “Oh, a paragraph is 8-12 sentences long,” students would routinely say.  I’m not sure where this definition of a paragraph came from, but it was taught with remarkable consistency for much of the last twenty years.  Over the last few years, I am starting to hear a different, more functional answer:  “Oh, a paragraph is about 3-4 sentences at least and maybe about 7 sentences at most.”  Despite this relative improvement in the perception of paragraph length, I still find students writing “mega-paragraphs,” and those “paragraphs” often (let’s say) start on page 2 and end on page 4.  These “mega-paragraphs” usually develop from a lack of clear organizational structure—instead of making one point that leads to another point in a programmatic fashion, the author attempts to say several things all at once.

A lack of explicit reasoning that moves from one concept to the next to programmatically prove a point.  This is the broad, structural version of the previous issue.  Students may articulate a clear governing claim/thesis that can be reasonably supported, and yet their argument bounces randomly through ideas rather than making a linear case.  Of course, good writing sometimes cannot be linear and direct; sometimes authors must take “side treks” in order to guide the reader to the final conclusion.  These side treks should never be considered the default for academic writing, however.  Instead, writers should build a case like a lawyer in a murder trial.  Classic detective-novel reasoning here is good enough for our purposes—in order to prove that Tom killed Jerry, we need to show that Tom had the means to commit the murder, a significant motive for killing Jerry, and the opportunity to commit the murder. If those are the three things that we must demonstrate, then we craft our argument to support those three points, in whatever order best allows for clear movement from one idea to the next.

To extend the analogy, beginning writers often start out showing the Tom had the means to commit the murder, then take a detour into Tom’s character and the horrible things he wrote on social media, then return to the issue of means while confusingly introducing a hint of Tom’s motives, then going into an elaborate forensic analysis of the DNA at the crime scene, then proving that Tom had no alibi, and finally concluding with, “There, as you can plainly see, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Tom killed Jerry.”  Note that all of these elements COULD be used in a court case against Tom, including the references to his horrible social media posts.  The problem is that there is no clear line of reasoning that helps the reader understand how (for instance) the DNA evidence relates to the question of opportunity (maybe the DNA proves Tom’s alibi is false).

Equating scholarly, formal writing with a stiff, abrupt tone.  Good writing can be personalized and can reflect a writer’s sense of style.  With the exception of some specific disciplinary audiences, such as writing up a lab report for a physics class, there is no need to sound stiff, inhuman, and impersonal.

Alternately, equating scholarly formal writing with a loopy, baroque style.  Sometimes young writers assume that their goal should be to personalize the material as much as possible, to sound creative and elegant in the manner that associate with “high” scholarship.  Often, the remedy is to ask the writer for a “plain English” translation of their ideas.

Commas used everywhere or nowhere.  I am not talking here about the occasional miscue of a misplaced comma, and I am not talking about my lifelong support for the “Oxford comma,” which is regarded by some writers as inessential.  What I’m talking about here is a systematic inability to use commas correctly.  I often find that, at some point, the student was chastised for his/her use of commas, and now the student either avoids commas completely or else throws in commas everywhere, hoping some of those commas land in the right places.  For tutors who are not themselves sure about where commas go (which is an understandable issue), note that you can still observe that the writer is avoiding commas or overusing commas, even if you have trouble explaining the grammatical issues.

No awareness of the distinction between plural and possessive.  This is just plain annoying:  “The heroes actions demonstrate his character.”  One hero (“hero’s”)?  Several heroes, possessive (“The heroes’ actions demonstrate their character”)?  What are you trying to say here?

No attention to verb tense.  Also just plain annoying:  “Tom enters the room and sees Jerry.  Jerry tried to run away, but he slipped and fell, so Tom hits him with a mallet and then escapes before anyone had seen him.”  Either write the whole thing in past tense or write the whole thing in present tense.  Because students in my academic field must so often write descriptions of actions, such as describing the actions of characters in a film or summarizing the steps involved in a religious ritual, I see this problem a lot.

Section headers used as transitions.  I love section headers as a tool for helping the reader intuit the organizational logic of your work.  But by themselves, section headers don’t actually transition a reader from one idea to another idea in a way that connects those two ideas.  Use a section header and transition sentences.

Sentence fragments produced by years of SMS texting.  We’ve all produced incomplete sentences and seen the dreaded “FRAG” comment in the margin of our work.  Contemporary first year students are, however, even more likely to produce sentence fragments in my experience.  SMS texting allows for and even encourages the expression of partial thoughts on the presumption that the reader is “clued into” the context that makes their partial thought complete.  This is especially the case with “meme culture,” where a single image and accompanying text is used as a shorthand for a host of thoughts and feelings that are condensed, almost poetically, down to something that can be sent via text with a few thumb swipes.

Using 50 words to say what can be expressed in only 10.  Students often write themselves into an idea, wandering through a ton of words in order to arrive at a useful concept.  The revision process should involve rigorous editing to tighten the work.

Essid’s Addendum: “Hand Grenade” quotations bedevil first-year work. Students drop in a quotation without introducing it or linking it to other claims made by follow-up analysis. -10 again and a week to fix it. It amazes me how many neglect to get it done in a week, losing a full letter grade in the process.

Image source: “The Stair Method” by Sage Ross at Flickr.

Recognition for 2022 Consultants Who are Graduating

It’s been a long year, with the waning of the Pandemic and a lingering sense of anxiety among students, staff, and faculty. So with great relief, and gratitude, I want to congratulate our graduating seniors for their hard work.

A few pieces of news stand out in Spring 2022. First, we had two recipients for Consultant of the Year, an annual award for graduates; faculty nominate Writing Consultants for this honor. And the winners are Maya Lieberman and Jon Gandara.

Jon and Maya finish their time at Richmond with signature accomplishments that marry service and peer assistance. Jon not only assisted several classes in different fields of study, but he also found time to proofread drafts of every faculty summary submitted this year by Consultants working in our Center. He and Joe Essid would then discuss any summaries that needed more. Jon’s job helped to prepare him for the painstaking duties he’ll undertake as a law student at the University of Mississippi.

Maya also worked with different courses, long assisting in Professor Outka’s General Education courses in literature. This year, she helped freshman writers in Representing Civil Rights, a first-year seminar taught by Professor Patricia Herrera in our Department of Theatre and Dance. She will begin work with BookBub in the Editorial & Production Co-op, editing and writing content for the company and its community of book lovers.

Maya and Jon will be recognized in our Commencement program. To both students, congratulations and Godspeed.

Other Consultants are bound for exciting jobs and graduate work. In no particular order save how early I received the news…

  • Ben Weiser has been accepted for the program Master of Public Policy at Oxford University. He is receiving the Jepson scholarship for Oxford, to fund his graduate work.
  • Erin Derubertis was hired as a Data Engineer at a software company called Tresata in Charlotte, NC. She reports that “my writing skills came in handy even in a data-focused position.”
  • Olivia Gallmeyer has been accepted into a Master’s of Women’s Gender & Sexuality Studies at Brandeis.
  • Sophia McWilliams will be working for Kobre and Kim, a global law firm in New York City, for the next year or two before attending law school.

Of course it is with sadness that we bid all of our graduates farewell. If you have news about your work after leaving Richmond, please let us know and I’ll crow about it (there’a a final metaphor) here.

 

Writing Consultant of the Year, 2021: Annalise Mangone

annalise mangoneOne of the author’s most difficult decisions every April is to announce which of our Writing Consultants has been selected for our award.

2021 was not, however, a difficult year, as our recipient Annalise Mangone received nominations twice last year, from both a faculty member and a writer she assisted. This year, she received two more, from different faculty and student recommenders.

Annalise trained with me well before the pandemic and she was an anchor in my training class and frequently demonstrated her intellectual curiosity beyond the job of Writing Consultant. She participated in events sponsored by the Center, including fiction readings off-campus by writers of science fiction and fantasy who came to campus for my class, Reading SF & Fantasy.  During the early part of the pandemic, she often dropped in for my “wine and whine” evening Zoom office hours, an event aimed at bringing some coherence back to a scattered workforce anxious about ongoing events on and off-campus.

When working with students at the Center or in classes, she proved her mettle as an enthusiastic helper. I asked her to describe her time among us, and she noted, “In terms of what I recall most about UR, it has always been how kind and encouraging the faculty have been. In all of my classes, my faculty have been truly devoted to making sure that we are learning in interesting and effective ways, and especially this year have been supportive of all of my many research interests and endeavours.”

That British spelling works well and it stands as Annalise wrote it. She will be completing an MSc program at Oxford in Anthropology next year. I am both jealous and disappointed in one regard: when I finally walk the upper reaches of the Thames Path in a few years, ending it at Oxford, Annalise won’t be there to give us a tour.

In terms of her work with writers, she notes that “I always say that I love being a class Writing Consultant because it gives me the chance to ‘audit’ courses that I would not otherwise have the opportunity to experience, and I think that curiosity has guided my course of study in anthropology and leadership. I love exploring the many different theoretical frameworks of the field as well as carrying out my own research into topics like stress management in extracurricular clubs or chaplaincy and spirituality in Richmond area hospitals.”

That sort of passion for learning makes Annalise stand out even in a year with many other strong candidates for the award. We wish her every success in the wide (and finally, opening!) world beyond our campus gates.

Writing Consultant of the Year, Rose Ferraro

Rose during study abroadEach year, faculty members who work with Writing Consultants nominate one graduating Consultant who has done exemplary work with our writers. This year, Professors Porcher Taylor in the School of Professional and Continuing Studies and Yucel Yanikdag of History nominated Rose Ferraro, our 2020 winner.

Rose has been with the program for a while; I distinctly recall her quiet but insightful presence in the training class, before she began work in the Writing Center and with faculty teaching FYS. She has a careful eye for sentence-level work but also a clear grasp of how to shape an argument.

Rose is double-majoring in global studies (with a concentration in politics and government) and Italian, and minoring in anthropology. She studied abroad in Maastricht, Netherlands in the spring of her sophomore year. While abroad she studied a wide range of subjects, noting “in addition to classes on conflict resolution, foreign policy, healthcare, and migration, I had two courses on argumentation theory.” Rose continued work in these areas when she returned to campus. I know from her professors that writers struggling with the transition to college-level argumentation benefitted from her experience in this area.

She writes that she ” was recommended to be a writing consultant by Dr. Roof when I was a student in her FYS section ‘Healthcare Policy and Politics: The U.S. and the World.’ I wasn’t sure about it at first, but after being asked to write articles about legal writing for the New York State Bar Association Journal during my internship at the New York County Supreme Court, I decided to enroll in the training course that fall. I went abroad the following semester, but came back and worked for Dr. Taylor for a year. I went on to work for Dr. Kuti, then Dr. Yanikdag, a former professor of mine, requested me for my final semester. While on campus, I also volunteered with Higher Achievement Richmond, where I helped eighth grade students write high school application essays, and worked as a drill instructor for Italian 221 and in the Curriculum Materials Center (the education library). It’s kind of funny, actually, because when I came to Richmond, I was determined to pursue law, specifically prosecution. However, over the years, I’ve found myself becoming more and more interested in positions that grant me the opportunity to help others grow and reach their potential not just as writers, but as individuals who bring to the table unique experiences and outlooks.”

I asked about her plans for next year. She writes, “they’re up in the air right now due to the COVID-19 situation. I had been invited by the Peace Corps to serve as an English teacher in the Eastern Caribbean, and I was going to accept that, but all departures have been postponed until at least October. I had also been accepted into American University, among others, but the state- and country-wide lockdowns aren’t really conducive to earning a master’s in U.S. Foreign Policy and National Security like I had wanted to do if the Peace Corps didn’t pan out, so… I’m looking into civil service and government jobs that are still accepting applications.”

We are delighted to have all of our seniors as mentors for their younger peers this year, but as with Rose, we are sorry to lose them. That said,  we know they’ll have many adventures ahead of them, as the world returns to its normal way of life. And may that be so for all of you. UR will plan a Commencement for the class of 2020, and I plan to attend so I can congratulate them in person.

An Alumna Takes Her Writing Consultant Experience to South America!

Medellin Columbia

Image and story by Meghann Lewis

My work as a Writing Consultant gave me the confidence to enter the world of teaching beyond the University of Richmond. In fact, “Writing Consultant” was the position that I listed first while applying for teaching jobs over this summer.

After a fairly lengthy application process (finding jobs in South America while still living in the States is no easy task!), I landed a job at a small English-teaching company in Medellín, Colombia, where I will work part-time as I complete a 10-month research internship in the field of public health. I’m three weeks into my new job, and I have already applied so many tactics that I used every week in Boatwright 180.

Many of my students here are just beginning to learn English, so both their speaking and writing contain quite a few errors. Although it is tempting to overcorrect these students, I make myself think back to Dr. Essid’s mantra “the Writing Center is not a fix-it shop!” I know that “fixing” each and every small spoken mistake of an A1 or A2 English language-learner doesn’t do much good.

Rather, I single out repeated errors as a means of creating teaching points that will really stick with the student—that way, they can build upon their new language skills with each lesson. Additionally, working in the Writing Center with international and study abroad students (many of whom spoke Spanish as their first language) helped me build communication skills that I use with my Colombian students.

Even though we don’t speak the same first language, we are able to have productive lessons, relate to one another, and have a good time. I am grateful for the skills that I gained from working at the University of Richmond Writing Center; I truly will carry them forward and continue to develop them wherever my teaching jobs take me!

Word of the Week! Susurrus

This week, UR and VCU hosted writer Fran Wilde for a  workshop on voice. Fran is giving a reading at the Edgar Allan Poe Museum, to celebrate the release of  the anthology His Hideous Heart, where modern authors reinterpret tales by Poe.

During our workshop on campus, I asked her the first word of Poe’s that came to mind, a word she associates with this unique voice.

“Susurrus” is a fine choice! The OED entry calls it a “whispering,” a “rustling.” Think about how the sense of the word fits its sound. That’s called onomatopoeia, a word I had to memorize in high school, and spell correctly lest the yardstick in Father Raymond’s hands came down on me:

From a remote distance, half-sensed in that gloomy place called a school yet more like a Romanesque prison-house beneath a mossy tile roof, I can to this day, in a moment of dread that darkens the sun, almost hear a susurrus of priestly robes, as the phantasmal figure glided toward me, a rod of malice raised high over the rage-knotted face

I think you get the idea of why Poe enjoyed the word.

If you can imagine the half-heard noises in The House of Usher, you have our onomatopoeic word of the week, as autumnal a term as any that Poe uttered. Though of Latin derivation, the term only dates to 1826. Why it came into being, save as an artistic coinage, remains a mystery.

Reading Poe to PoeBut that’s just so for this season of the year and for Poe’s work. He did give us the detective story, after all. Let’s get busy solving this one, if we can. I look forward to a susurrus of whispered half-answers.

Special thanks to Fran Wilde for an excellent workshop and a fine Word of the Week! She also provided advice about pronunciation. Accent that second syllabus, sus-SUR-us. I’ve been saying “SU-surrus” for decades, incorrectly. It’s a fine term never encountered in everyday or even academic speech, yet in writing, it conveys enormous power.

Please send us words and metaphors useful in academic writing by e-mailing me (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leaving a comment below.

See all of our Metaphors of the Month here and Words of the Week here.

Image of Fran Wilde by permission of Ms. Wilde; image of Poe and the author by permission of The Great Beyond.

 

 

Writing Consultant of the Year, Emily Churchill

Emily with Joe EssidThis year, as we have done annually for a long time, the faculty recognize a graduating Senior who has impressed us with the assistance provide to student writers. Emily Churchill has an additional honor: she received three simultaneous nominations from the faculty she’s assisted, a record in our program’s history.

Emily is from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with majors in LALIS & Global Studies, and a minor in Women, Gender, and Sexuality studies. She was first recommended to be a writing consultant by Dr. Aurora Hermida-Ruiz when she was a student in her FYS section, “Time & the City of Seville.” That summer, she had the opportunity to travel with Dr. Herimda-Ruiz to Seville for five weeks on a summer study abroad program. 

Dr. Stephen Long in Political Science and Dr. Olivier Delers in The Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures also nominated Emily for work in their classes.

Throughout her time at Richmond, Emily studied abroad a total of six times, including two summers in Seville, a summer in Morocco, an academic year in Granada, Spain, a civic fellowship in Ecuador, and a one-week trip to Santiago, Chile with Dr. Pribble’s Latin American Politics class. 

On campus, she served as the Study Abroad Peer Advisor in addition to serving as a Writing Consultant. As she told me, “Both positions have allowed me to mentor underclassmen and form lasting connections with the Richmond community.  My long-term plan is to take a few years to travel, do research, and work in NGOs before pursuing a PhD in Hispanic Studies. I hope to write fiction in addition to producing academic research throughout my career.”

This summer she will be working in San Isidro, Costa Rica with the organization, Amigos de las Americas, which provides service-learning trips for high school students. 

I want to congratulate Emily for her hard work and thank all the Consultants and Faculty who were nominated and who will return to campus to work with student writing again in the Fall.

Common Misconceptions of the Writing Center

By Griffin Myers, Writing Consultant

This week I asked Griffin, who is overseeing a proofreading project for our Writers’ Web online handbook, to discuss what she’s seen among peers.

Only bad writers use the Writing Center:

Students of all experience levels can benefit from visiting the Writing Center. Sometimes even just a second set of eyes can pick up errors that the author’s mind may not notice. Writing consultants also have training and experience with a wide variety of paper types, so can help out with unfamiliar formats or with particular professor pet peeves. Even consultants go into the center, because we understand how helpful an educated peer editor can be!

English isn’t my first language and the consultants might judge me:

Actually, English-language learners make up a significant portion of the students who come through our center.  Writing consultants are trained in how to break down errors in to patterns and can therefore address foundational confusions instead of simply fixing problems on a case to case basis. This can be helpful for any writer but especially for those still grasping the syntax and contradicting rules of the English language. We can also help you get in touch with teachers with ESL specific training, as well as those writing Consultants who have more experience with teaching English to speakers of other languages.

The Consultants will proofread my paper:

The Writing Center does not do grammar checks. Rather, we will look at your paper holistically to suggest areas of improvement from everything from format to content to yes, grammar. Our goal is to help writers recognize and correct potential weaknesses in their own writing, rather than to simply have a Consultant check off spelling and send the writer on their way.     This isn’t to say that we will not help writers with grammar: Consultants will just work with the writer to develop a better understanding of grammar, instead of just fixing case by case mistakes.

I have to have a completed draft:

Writing Consultants can help with every step of the writing process, from developing and organizing an outline, to analyzing an old graded paper to shore up weak spots together. One caveat is that the more prepared the writer is when they come into the appointment, the more the Consultant can help the student.

The Consultants are only for FYS classes:

We have in class Consultants in classes at all levels! Additionally, our Writing Center is open to everyone, regardless of current class.

The Consultants are only for English classes:

Our Consultants have a wide knowledge base that can be applied to almost any subject to improve writing quality. Additionally, if you have a specific subject that you would like help on, check out our list of Consultant majors online: one of us is likely taking the same major!

I can only go to the Writing Center for class assignments:

While sometimes a specific teacher will send you to the Writing Center with an assignment, we exist to help you, the student! This means from theses to job applications, we are happy to lend a helping hand for all of your writing needs.

The Writing Center is only for undergrads:

Any Richmond student, including SPCS students, are welcome at the Writing Center. Can’t come by at all? Try reaching out to one of our Consultants and see if they can meet on campus at a later hour, or if they’re willing to provide assistance via email.

Working With Your Writing Consultant or Faculty Member: Best Practices

Every semester I survey the Writing Consultants. Without naming names, they note how faculty employed their helpers well or might have made better use of them. By the same token, faculty surveys reveal a few issues that Consultants should address.

This post lays out advice that has worked since 1992, when the program of assigning Consultants (then called Writing Fellows) began.

For Consultants

  • Contact your faculty member early, and let me know if you do not hear back from her within a week or ten days.
  • Meet the faculty member personally to discuss deadlines, expectations, and any professorial “pet peeves” or disciplinary secrets you can use when meeting writers. Warn faculty members of your own busy weeks.
  • Visit class if you can, to meet the writers so they can pair a name with a face. It’s good to do so early in the term, and also on days when assignments get discussed. You are paid for all contact hours, workshops, and class visits.
  • Conferences should not be scheduled in 15 minute blocks. I expect them to run at least 30 minutes on the schedule. If a writer is eager to leave early, of course, wrap things up. Overly short meetings, however, serve no one well.
  • After a set of conferences, e-mail or meet your faculty member to discuss how things went. Do not use the online summary form we use at the Center and in 383; that is for Writing-Center shift work only or if you see a friend or person outside your usual assignment to a class (we like to have some record of who we saw for hourly work, for our annual assessment).
  • Let me know if, by midterm, your services have not been employed. We will find you some other duties.
  • If a faculty member dumps a lot of work on you at a terrible time, let me know as well. We’ll find you a helper.
  • When you have an English-Language Learner who needs continued assistance you feel unable to provide, contact me and I’ll put you in touch with Dr. Leslie Bohon-Atkinson, who does ESL work for the university, both one-on-one work and through classes.

For Faculty

  • Mandatory conferences, one before midterm and one after, provide Consultants the chance to help writers as they develop. In my sections, failures to submit drafts or meet the Consultant are penalized the equivalent of a letter grade.
  • If you make conferences optional, only 25% of writers will show up, on average. As one Consultant reminded me recently, those who show up are “typically the students who need the least help.”
  • Let the Consultant arrange the conference scheduling. Many of them use a Google-based sign-up sheet and lock it down after a while so writers cannot change times at the last moment.
  • Changing deadlines can cause problems when a Consultant has a busy semester. As Dr. Sydney Watts once reminded me “their first job is to be students, not Writing Consultants.” Well said.
  • Conversely, keep the Consultant well employed. This is a paid job; if you prefer to have Consultants only see one paper, let me know so they can find other work to supplement their income that semester.
  • Consultants need a week or ten days between getting drafts and your getting them back, for a typical FYS section of 16 writers.
  • As noted for the Consultants, when you have an English-Language Learner who needs continued assistance you feel unable to provide, contact me and I’ll put you in touch with Dr. Leslie Bohon-Atkinson, who does ESL work for the university, both one-on-one work and through classes.

We look forward to working with all of you in the coming semester!