What to Expect as a Student

You Have Come to the Write Place: Writing Center Podcast

This podcast series is created by Maddie Horton, Bellarmine University's Writing Center Student Program Coordinator. This podcast series was created in order to help students gain helpful advice when writing papers in various disciplines. Want to learn about writing in different disciplines? Take a listen: 

Writing Center Resources 

Each of these sites provide relevant information for various aspects of writing: 

What to Expect as a Student

Learn more about the Writing Center

If you are coming to the writing center for the first time, you might be feeling a bit uneasy or uncomfortable about showing and talking about your writing with a stranger. Knowing a bit about how that conversation might go may help you feel more at ease. Writing Center coaches are, like you, student-writers. All of us share an interest in writing. We like to write and we like to talk about writing. When you come to the Writing Center, one of us will sit down with you. We'll ask you what you're working on and work with you to get a good description of your assignment or project, a good sense of where you are in the writing process, and a good sense of where you would most like to focus the conversation.

Some typical topics include brainstorming paper topics or theses; building support structures for primary arguments; writing from sources; building citations; writing introductions and conclusions; revising strategies; knowing yourself as a writer; and revision strategies for student-writers.

Your conversation will last for twenty-five or fifty minutes. You and your consultant will typically use the last five to ten minutes to create a plan for your continuing work on your assignment or project. You probably won't be finished with your paper when you leave the writing center, but you should have a very good sense of what to spend your time working on and how to accomplish the work that remains to be done.

You may visit the writing center occasionally (on an as-needed basis) or set up regular appointments. You can choose to work consistently with one writing coach or with a different writing coach each time you come.

What to Bring

When you come to the Writing Center for a session you should bring the assignment description if you have one. If you are writing an assignment for a class, bring your syllabus. Bring any writing you have done for your assignment or project (your most recent draft and, if it seems useful to you, bring prior drafts). If you are working on an application essay for graduate school, bring the prompt to which you've been asked to respond. If you are coming to the writing center to work on a longer project such as a thesis or dissertation, you may want to set up regular appointments with a Writing Coach. For your first few appointments, bring any written description of departmental or programmatic expectations for theses or dissertations in your discipline.