How Our Tutorials Work

What To Bring With You

If you are working on a class assignment, it is always helpful if you bring your assignment sheet with you. If you have already begun writing, please bring a draft as well. If you are looking to revise a paper that has already been evaluated, it is helpful for us to have the paper that includes your instructor’s feedback. Some writers like to work directly on their laptops or tablet devices.  That’s fine, too—whatever works for you!

What To Expect

Once you enter the Writing Center and have checked in with the receptionist, you will be introduced to your tutor at the start of your appointment. Your tutor will begin by asking you what you wish to work on during your tutoring session.

If you have a draft with you, he/she will then skim your draft, mostly likely asking you to read it aloud. Your tutor won’t correct your work or write it for you; instead, your tutor will read your work with care and give feedback on elements that are working well and those that could be working better. Your tutor will talk to you about the content of your work, helping you to expand your ideas or to articulate them more clearly. If you need assistance with citations, your tutor will help you with that.  If you need help with grammar, your tutor will help you with that, too, by pointing out patterns of errors, and working with you to identify those errors so you can fix them yourself in future writings.

Informing Your Instructor (Or Not)

You may decide whether or not to have a record of your tutoring session sent to your instructor. There is a question on the appointment form that allows you to choose this option. Most students do so as they want their instructors to know that they have made the effort to seek additional help for their writing.  Included in the report is a description of the writing issues that you addressed during your tutorial, written by your tutor.

Watch the video below for more information about face-to-face tutorials.

Rather than meet with a tutor face-to-face in the Writing Center, writers who request online appointments meet with their tutors online through our WCOnline portal.

Our online appointments work (and look) like an online chat. You can ask your tutor to enable audio and video if you wish, but it is not required (and how well it works depends on the strength of the connection on both ends.)

Who Can Use Online Tutoring

All members of the SJU community are welcome to make in-person or online appointments Monday through Sunday, depending on tutor availability. However, whenever possible, we encourage writers, especially undergraduate day students, to make face-to-face appointments.

How It Works

In the appointment form on WCOnline, which you fill out to schedule an appointment, you will be asked whether or not you wish to meet online in a drop-down menu.  Select “Yes – Meet Online.”

A few minutes before your appointment is scheduled to begin, log back into sju.mywconline.com and click on your appointment box to pull up your appointment form.  In that form, you will see the following words in red: Start or Join Online Conversation. Click on the words in red.  A new window will open.

On the left-hand side of your screen, in the largest portion of the window, paste the document that you would like to review with your tutor.  On the right-hand side of your screen, you will see the chat space.

Your tutor will begin the chat by greeting you and, if it is your first time doing an online appointment, the tutors will also help you navigate the online tutoring process.

Watch the video below for more information.

Tips for Making the Most of Your Tutorial

Take a few moments at the start the chat to introduce yourself and let your tutor know what you wish to work on during your session.

Share any information about the assignment that will help your tutor understand your goals. (Sometimes, writers cut and paste their assignment into text box, along with their paper, either on top of or below their paper.)

Give your tutor a few minutes to look over what you have pasted in the box on the left.

The tutor might direct you to places in the text by using the numbers on the left that correspond with your lines of texts, by highlighting, by using the bold and underline functions, by inserting questinos or comments in brackets. They may cut and paste and move text around. Surrender to the process. It can get messy! But if it's too messy or you'd prefer a different approach, just say so!

Additional tips:

• Don’t worry about trying to make all of the suggested changes in the midst of the session. Revision takes time, and you don't want to miss out on additional opportunities for feedback.
• Ask questions! We're here for you, trying to help as best as we can. If you don't understand something or if you need more or a different kind of feedback, just ask!
• If you aren't able to do everything you wish to do in a single session, make another appointment, with the same tutor or with someone else.

While our online tutoring option is synchronous, with writers and tutors meeting together virtually for scheduled appointments during our regular business hours, eTutoring is asynchronous. It allows writers to upload a paper (up to 7 double-spaced pages) and receive feedback from a tutor by email.

eTutoring is not a copyediting or proofreading service. Our tutors read your work with care and give big-picture feedback, such as how well you respond to the assignment directions, the clarity of your argument, etc.

In addition to the document that you wish for us to review, we ask that, if possible, you  attach your instructor’s assignment sheet when you schedule an appointment.

Please note that you will receive a response within 24 hours of your appointment time. You should therefore only use this service if you are submitting a document at least two days before the deadline. For writers with longer assignments, we recommend making online or face-to-face synchronous appointments instead. eTutoring appointments are limited to one per week.

In addition to being required in college courses, public speaking and presentation skills are often necessary for success outside of academia, as they create opportunities for networking and collaboration, foster the spread and development of ideas and build professional profiles. But if you’re like a lot of people, public speaking makes you queasy. 🤢

We’re here to help!  You can make an appointment with a tutor to practice your presentation aloud. We offer presentation tutorials at both our PLC and Griffith Library locations, in spaces where you pull up your presentation on a large screen and give it a trial run. These appointments are designed to help you work through any public speaking anxieties and receive feedback on both the presentation’s content and its appearance before your presentation day.

When you make your appointment, just check the box in the appointment form that asks if you would like to “practice giving a slide presentation.”

Doing a group presentation? Bring the whole gang along!

Don’t need help giving your presentation, but just want us to go over your slides? We can do that, too, at all three of our locations, any time we are open.

What to Bring to Your Appointment

• Yourself and/or your presentation partners
• Your laptop or any device with access to your presentation
• Any materials associated with the presentation (rubrics, visual references, notes, etc.)

What to Expect at Your Appointment

Presenters will be able to give a mock presentation in preparation for their actual presentation. A tutor will listen to your presentation, taking note of your body language, speech, formatting, flow of information, visual appeal of the presentation and ability to engage with your audience. The tutor will hold their feedback until after the presentation, but you may ask for any immediate commentary, first impressions or clarification during the presentation.

Tips for Presenters

• Don’t be nervous! This is just a trial run to help you prepare for your presentation.
• Be active! Don’t be afraid to get involved with your presentation.
• Speak clearly! Make sure you keep your statements short, sweet, and to the point.
• Engage with your audience! Feel free to ask for commentary or clarification from your tutor.

More Resources

Check out these tip sheets to help you prepare for your presentation:

• How to Create an Effective Visual Presentation Guide
• How to Prepare for a Presentation Guide
• Tips for Presenting and Overcoming Anxiety

–Chase Davis ’24, Anne Gutherman ’24, Cara Santilli ’24

Overview

The Writing Partnership Program pairs a writer with the same tutor for a weekly session throughout the semester. The program aims to help writers achieve long-term writing goals through weekly assistance on any writing assignment, including academic essays, creative writing, discussion posts, lab reports, text analyses, business writing, journalism, research projects, and slideshare presentations.

The writer and tutor meet at the same time and day each week for up to one hour. During this time, the writer and tutor may focus on the writer’s assignments, make plans for future assignments, or discuss helpful critical reading and writing techniques. 

Sustained partnerships such as these can target broader writing issues rather than those tied to specific assignments. In addition, a strengthened tutor-writer relationship can allow writers to feel more comfortable sharing their work at any stage of the writing process.

Apply

If you are interested in participating in the SJU Writing Center’s Writing Partnership Program, please fill out this form.