hi! do you have any tips on how to approach the writing center? i’m a first year and i want to make sure my papers are the best it can be; it’s just hard when there’s still that high school tinge to your writing if you know what i mean haha. should i be approaching the writing center before or after i’m done my paper? i have no idea how this works. thank you!
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hey there,
i really love my friendly local writing centre, so i’m really glad you asked!
when i was in my first year, i also remember being super confused as to how the writing centre works, but i was too scared to ask and didn’t end up going for a long while. so kudos to you for reaching out. transitioning to university-level academic writing is definitely challenging, and it’s important to have some kind of support instead of figuring everything out yourself.
my brain is absolutely fried from midterms. have you also found that being a student during a pandemic is so HARD? so uh i’m just gonna brain-dump all the advice i can think of, i hope that’s cool with you.
first, to answer your question about when to approach the writing centre, you can ask the centre for help at pretty much any point in the process of writing a paper! you can go when you just get the assignment and ask for help outlining/brainstorming, you can go if you get stuck midway through, and you can certainly go at the end when you have a finished draft ready for review. you can ask for help with citations too, or request advice honing a thesis. heck, you can even bring your readings and notes in and ask for help processing information. writing centre instructors understand that papers are a process, and they’re quite happy to meet you wherever you are.
in terms of choosing an instructor to book with, it’s a good idea to ask around. upper-years at your college, particularly the ones in humanities or social sciences, should have a good sense of which writing centre instructors are popular, particularly kind, particularly effective, et cetera. i picked my go-to writing instructor by asking my friends who they liked, and i’m really glad i asked because it saved me the trouble of feeling things out for myself.
the process of booking and getting ready for an appointment goes kinda like this: you decide you need help, you figure out which writing centres you’re eligible for (your college plus the colleges affiliated with any courses you’re taking, ie for help with a VIC279 project i could go to the vic writing centre), and you enter the appropriate writing centre portal. then you figure out what a good time is for you, check your preferred instructors’ availability, and follow the instructions to book an appointment with them! appointments are usually 50 minutes long, and instructions for accessing them virtually should be provided. i think different instructors/centres have different preferences for meeting. these days, it’s useful to have your assignment on a google doc that you can share with the instructor, so that the two of you can track suggestions and comments as you look the piece over.
one last pro tip: be strategic about booking your appointments. by the time i hit second year, i realized that a good system for me was to sit down at the beginning of the semester with all my syllabi, and map out all my deadlines. then, i go into the writing centre portal and book appointments right before the deadlines of my biggest term papers. popular writing centre instructors will be hard to get a hold of at the busiest times of the semester, and if you’re sure that you want a slot, it’s best to snag one early. i book mine right before the deadlines because i like to have my final drafts looked over, and as a side effect that forces me to finish my toughest papers early. if you want help earlier in the process, then budget for more time between your deadlines and your appointments. i don’t know what other writing centres’ rules are, but i think mine allows me to book up to three appointments at once, one per week, with a limit of eight per term. get a sense of what the rules are, when you might need help, and book accordingly.
i hope this helped, and happy halloween!
be Boundless,
aska