How Our Tutorials Work

GENERAL TIPS: MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR TUTORING SESSION

• Come prepared with an idea of what you want to work on, and share any information that will help your tutor understand your goals. What stage of the process are you in? What kind of help are you looking for?
• Ask questions! We're here for you and want to help. If you don't understand something, or if you need more or a different kind of feedback, just ask!
• If you are unable to do everything you wish to do in a single session, don’t hesitate to make another appointment, either with the same tutor or with someone else.
• Writers can request to meet in person or over Zoom. All members of the SJU community are welcome to make either type of appointment. However, whenever possible, we encourage writers—especially undergraduate day students—to make face-to-face appointments.

MAKING A ZOOM OR FACE-TO-FACE APPOINTMENT

On our scheduling website, select one of the following schedules: Merion Hall 162 (HH), Griffith Hall 140 (UC), or Post Learning Commons 128 (HH). These are the only schedules that allow for scheduling synchronous meetings. To navigate to a different schedule, use the “Schedules” button in the toolbar at the top of the screen. If you are looking for asynchronous tutoring, please see the eTutoring guide below. 

To make an appointment, first click a white box on the schedule to open the appointment form. Under “Meet Online?” select “No” for an in-person, face-to-face appointment or select “Yes” for an online Zoom appointment. Then fill out the rest of the information and click “Create Appointment” at the bottom of the form.

In-person and online appointments are available Sunday through Friday, depending on tutor availability.

FACE-TO-FACE TUTORING: HOW IT WORKS

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

ONLINE TUTORING: HOW IT WORKS

Sharing Your Documents: The main difference between online and in-person appointments is how you share your work with your tutor for them to review. There are several options for sharing documents with your tutor:

• Upload to your appointment form
• Upload to Zoom chat
• Use screensharing
• Upload to Google Docs or Microsoft 365 and share the link (be sure to change the permissions so that your tutor can leave comments and/or edit!)

Choose whichever way is simplest for you! 

WHAT TO EXPECT IN ZOOM AND FACE-TO-FACE TUTORING SESSIONS

1. Getting Ready: If you are working on a class assignment, have your assignment sheet ready to share. 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, please also bring your instructor’s feedback. If you are meeting in person and wish to work directly on your own laptop or tablet, bring that as well.
2. Arriving: For face-to-face appointments, enter the Writing Center and check in with the receptionist. For Zoom appointments, you will return to the scheduling website, open your appointment, and click “Start or Join Online Consultation”. See our video guides above for more information.
3. Setting the Agenda: Your tutor will begin by asking you what you wish to work on during your tutoring session. They will ask to see a copy of your prompt/assignment sheet (if applicable) and may ask questions about the due date and other contextual information.
4. Working Together: If you have a draft, they will skim your draft, possibly 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 work with you to identify patterns of errors so you can learn to spot them yourself in future writing.
5. Concluding: At the end of your appointment, your tutor will check in with you about what you covered. The specifics of this will vary. For example, they may ask if you have any additional questions, or they may help you figure out your next steps with the project you are working on.
6. Completing the Survey: Before you leave, your tutor will ask that you complete our survey. This is not required, but it is appreciated!
7. Receiving the Report: After your appointment ends, your tutor will write a brief report on what you did together. When you make your appointment, you can choose ahead of time to have this report be sent to your professor. Most students do choose this, as they want their instructors to know that they have made the effort to seek additional help with their writing, but it is not required.

WHAT IS ETUTORING?

eTutoring is asynchronous tutoring. It allows writers to upload a paper (up to 7 double-spaced pages) and receive feedback from a tutor by email. eTutoring is available every day of the week.

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. 

MAKING AN ETUTORING APPOINTMENT

On our scheduling website, select the eTutoring schedule. This is the only schedule where you can make asynchronous appointments. To navigate to a different schedule, use the “Schedules” button in the toolbar at the top of the screen. If you are looking for synchronous tutoring (either online or in person), please see the guide above. 

To make an appointment, click on a white box next to a tutor’s name to open the appointment form. If no white box is there, then that day of the schedule is full, and you may need to scroll down or switch to a different week to find an open appointment slot. Once the appointment form is open, fill out the required information and upload your draft. Be sure to include your assignment sheet or prompt as well. Click “Create Appointment” at the bottom of the form.

When making your appointment, please keep in mind that your tutor has up to 24 hours after the start of your appointment to return your feedback to you. You should therefore only use this service if you are submitting a document at least two days before the assignment 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. 

Please also keep in mind that eTutoring is primarily designed for reviewing partial or complete drafts. If you need help with brainstorming or outlining, please make a synchronous appointment.

HOW IT WORKS

1. Getting Ready: Make sure you upload the most recent version of your work to the appointment form before the start of your appointment. In addition to the document that you wish for us to review, we ask that you attach your instructor’s assignment sheet or copy and paste the assignment prompt into the appointment form.
2. Tutor Review: Your tutor will spend 1 hour reviewing your paper and leaving feedback on it. They will use strategies like highlighting, leaving comments, and sharing links to helpful resources. They will then record a brief video of themself giving verbal feedback about the paper.
3. Receiving the Feedback: Within 24 hours after the start of your appointment, you will receive an email from your tutor. The email will contain the video they recorded and a copy of your document with their feedback. It will also contain a link to our survey. Completing the survey is not required, but it helps us out a lot!
4. Receiving the Report: After they are finished, your tutor will write a brief report on what they reviewed. When you make your appointment, you can choose ahead of time to have this report be sent to your professor. Most students do choose this, as they want their instructors to know that they have made the effort to seek additional help with their writing, but it is not required.

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 our PLC location, 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 50 minutes. 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.