Ways to effectively use University Writing & Speaking Center consultations
Understanding assignments
If you receive an assignment and are unsure of expectations, criteria, etc., a writing consultant can help you analyze your assignment.
Brainstorming ideas
If you have an assignment that allows for choice, writing consultants can help you brainstorm ideas that will work for the assignment.
Planning your text
Once you know what you want to write about, writing consultants can help you plan your claims, evidence, details, organization, etc.
Narrowing the focus
Writing consultants are skilled at helping you narrow down topic ideas and developing focused thesis or claims that will work for academic assignments.
Researching
Writing consultants can help guide you through required research for your papers, which may include identifying what types of research you need to find, locating articles or other texts, discussing credibility of texts, planning how to read and identify key points from research, and discussing how to integrate research into papers.
Revision
Writing consultants can help you think through many ways to effectively revise your drafts. For example, many students under-develop ideas, so consultants can help you identify where your texts could benefit from more development and/or evidence. Additionally, organization is one of the most effective ways to revise drafts; our consultants are particularly skilled at reverse outlines to help you identify key areas for revision in your paper.
Editing
Writing consultants can help you find patterns of errors or ways to improve your sentence level language to create more effective writing that better represents you as a writer (e.g. your style) as well as meets the expectations for the genre, purpose, and audience.
Reading
Writing consultants can also help students with critical reading strategies. This can be particularly useful if you are required to use textual evidence or if you have a particularly difficult text you need to understand and apply.