Group items tagged

"For students, personal statements and application essays are among the most difficult and most important documents they will ever write. They are difficult because they require both introspection and polish, and important because the writer may literally be competing for tens of thousands of dollars in a huge field of outstanding candidates. A writing tutor who has provided guidance on more than a thousand graduate applications, Joe Schall advises you on how to be competitive but not cocky, informed but not formulaic, openly creative yet professional. As you consider ways to write your way into your future, count on this website to help you grow and thrive in the process."

Allie Squires's "How to Get Off Topic and Still Save Your Essay in One Tutoring Session or Less" was published in the Fall 2014 issue of the student journal Tutors.

"A Free Guide to Writing Your Personal Statement" includes help with brainstorming and structure, in addition to how to write a personal statement as a narrative 

26-minute video lecture by Eszter Timar, at Central European University entitled "How to Improve Your Research Proposal"

SUNY Plattsburgh's Allison Squires argues that it is alright to take a break during a tutoring sessions and to talk about AMC's The Walking Dead.

Michigan State U. Writing Center's "Quick Guide" podcasts on preparing for your appt.; how to have the best writing center appt.; how to write a paper; what you can do in 30 minutes

handouts on writing in various disciplines

The U. of Wisconsin-Madison's "Case Scenario/Crtiical Reader Builder is a desktop tool for creating a variety of web-based learning materials. You can combine text, images, video and audio along with embedded quiz questions and scoring to create compelling interactive critical readings, scenarios with decision branching, simulated dialogues, story-like narratives, media rich case studies and much more. The CSCR tool provides a framework for integrating multiple media elements and web resources to make your content come alive with interactivity. Learners can interact with and explore course content, make decisions and receive corrective feedback. For use for Tutors, click the link "Concept Tutor Plus" at the left of the page.

From Neal Lerner's July 2011 message to WCenter: Folks, the latest issue (July 2011) of the Journal of Writing Research includes a very impressive study by James Williams and Seiji Takaku of the relationship between college students' self-efficacy, help-seeking behaviors, writing center visits, and writing performance. Here's a link to a pdf of the study: http://www.jowr.org/articles/vol3_1/JoWR_2011_vol3_nr1_Williams_Takaku.pdf Here's a snippet to take to your dean: "The analysis showed that those students who frequently obtained writing center tutoring received higher grades in composition than those who did not, regardless of their ESL or native-English-speaker status. The frequency of writing center tutoring seemed to be especially valuable for the ESL students, who outperform their domestic cohorts, receiving significantly higher grades in composition."

NB This resource was based on a corpus of graduate dissertations. "The Academic Phrasebank is a general resource for academic writers. It aims to provide you with examples of some of the phraseological 'nuts and bolts' of writing organised according to the main sections of a research paper or dissertation (see the top menu ). Other phrases are listed under the more general communicative functions of academic writing (see the menu on the left). The resource should be particularly useful for writers who need to report their research work.The phrases, and the headings under which they are listed, can be used simply to assist you in thinking about the content and organisation of your own writing, or the phrases can be incorporated into your writing where this is appropriate. In most cases, a certain amount of creativity and adaptation will be necessary when a phrase is used.The items in the Academic Phrasebank are mostly content neutral and generic in nature; in using them, therefore, you are not stealing other people's ideas and this does not constitute plagiarism. For some of the entries, specific content words have been included for illustrative purposes, and these should be substituted when the phrases are used.The resource was designed primarily for academic and scientific writers who are non-native speakers of English. However, native speaker writers may still find much of the material helpful. In fact, recent data suggest that the majority of users are native speakers of English. "

This purpose of this web site is to maintain an online archive of the proceedings of the Two-Year College Association of the National Council of Teachers of English (TYCA/NCTE). Contact TYCA Archivist Clint Gardner for more information.

From Praxis: "Susan Mueller - A corporate assessment model offers a fresh approach to evaluating consultant training programs and consultations themselves. How many times have you watched struggling students leave your writing center and wondered how much they got out of the conference you just had with them? It is hard to know."