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Role of Tutors

What Tutors Do and Don’t Do in the Writing Center

  • We can help you to identify patterns of errors in your writing and teach you how to fix them yourself.
  • However, we do not “fix,” edit or proofread papers.
  • We can help you to understand your writing assignments better.  In addition, we can help you to generate, organize and clarify your ideas for your writing assignments, and we can give you advice on how to improve your writing skills. 
  • However, we do not compose, type, dictate, or tell you exactly what to write in your writing assignments.
  • We will look through your paper to see if it is organized and makes sense before checking it for consistent patterns of errors.
  • However, we cannot only look through your paper for grammatical errors, unless specifically instructed to do so by your instructor.
  • We can tell you if you are on the right track on your writing assignments.
  • However, we cannot tell you what grade you will get on your writing assignments; only your instructor can do this.
  • We can tell you the areas of strength that are in your paper and the areas that need to be improved.
  • However, we cannot tell you if your work is good or not.
  • After you have finished your assigned readings, by using the knowledge that you have of what you have read, we can help you to formulate ideas for your writing assignments.
  • However, we cannot do your assigned readings for you.
  • We can assist you in organizing your ideas for different writing assignments from a variety of disciplines.
  • However, in your writing assignments, we may not be able to verify whether the specific details are correct or not.  For example, we can help you with a paper from your history class, but we may not be able to tell you if certain people or dates are correct.
  • We may not be able to get through your entire writing assignment in only one tutoring session. 
  • However, feel free to come back to see us again on another day if you have further questions or concerns with your writing assignments.