Students
who go to the Notre Dame Writing Center looking for someone to
write a paper for them or rewrite one they've started are in for
a surprise.
"We don't write students' papers for them, edit students' papers
for them, grade student papers, or take the place of the professor,"
declares John Duffy, director of the center since its inception
in 1999.
What Duffy's staff of about 30 undergraduate and two graduate-student
tutors do is meet with students by appointment for 45 minutes
and offer free advice and suggestions. The service has proven
popular, as visits to the Writing Center, nuzzled into the second-floor
corner of the Coleman-Morse building, have grown from 278 its
first year to more than 2,800 last year.
The tutors, who make $7.50 an hour, are nominated by professors
for their writing capabilities and positive personalities. Other
students bring them writing projects at all stages of completion,
from conception to 30 minutes before an assignment is due.
All First-Year Composition courses require freshmen to take
at least one paper to the Writing Center. But the center's clientele
includes undergraduates of all levels plus graduate students,
law-, medical- and graduate-school applicants, English-as-a-Second-Language
students, and even elite students applying for Fulbright, Rhodes,
Marshall and Mitchell scholarships.
"The misconception is that this is a place where bad writers
get their grammar fixed, and that simply isn't true," Duffy said.
"The aim is to help writers of all abilities, at all ages."
Maureen Tate, a senior last year, said she visited the writing
center to discuss her application for medical school.
"I had something on paper, but it wasn't to the level that I
had hoped. Meeting with a tutor helped me find a focus that my
essay was previously lacking. Now I definitely wish I would have
used the center previously during my time at ND."
In addition to face-to-face meetings, students can get late-night
advice online. The center has its own Instant Messaging screen
name ("writingirish1"). From 10 p.m. to midnight Sunday through
Thursday students can use it to converse live with a tutor. The
center also sponsors writing workshops and talks by writing faculty.
Junior Phil Milroy said being a tutor is great because he learns
so much from the papers he reads.
"Every [First-Year Composition] research paper, history seminar
report or business law essay . . . teaches me something I didn't
know before."
Emma Nolan, a tutor as a senior last year, said tutoring helped
discipline her own approach to writing.
"I [learned] more as a Writing Center tutor than any class could
have taught me. No paper of mine [was] complete without me going
through the mental checklist that I would normally go through
when tutoring: Where's my thesis? Do my topic sentences support
it? Where's my evidence? I really do think [it was] the best job
on campus."
(October 2005)
