Do I Really Need a Tutor?

Hello again, Roxy Readers! We’re well into our fall semester, and we are very busy helping students with their first major writing assignments. Are you working on your paper, too? You may think that you’ve got this, but even the best writers need help sometimes. If you’re asking yourself whether you need a tutor, the answer is yes, you do.

I’ll walk you through the different stages of writing and demonstrate how a tutor can help you with each one.

1. Unpacking the Assignment Sheet: Sometimes there’s a lot of information, and it can be a little confusing. No worries. We got this! We’ll help you understand the prompt and other assignment requirements like documentation style. Having a set of trained eyes look over your assignment sheet can really help you be ready to tackle that paper!


2. Brainstorming: So now you understand the assignment, but you don’t know exactly what to write about. We can chat with you and help you bounce ideas around. We’ll sit with you as you capture your ideas and get a lead for THE idea for your paper. We can even talk you through organizing your ideas so that you can be one step closer to beginning a draft.


3. Outlining: An outline can be a great help in organizing your thoughts especially if you’re really stuck. The outline functions as a little roadmap for your paper. We can review sample outlines and make sure that your ideas are organized according to your professor’s instructions.


4. The Actual Writing Part: We find that it it’s most productive when you can do this on your own, but if you’re stuck on a sentence or a paragraph, we will gladly help you work through your writer’s block! We are also whizzes at APA and MLA and everything in between! We can help you integrate sources and polish your works cited pages. Our citation game is so strong that it will blow your socks off!


5. Revising and Editing: We will read through your paper and point out areas that could use some improvement. We can also give you mini lessons on things that may need some extra attention. For example, we can walk you through a lesson on fragments, word choice, citations, and much more! We want to empower you so that you’re able to revise and edit your own paper. We will gladly help you along the way, but it is YOUR paper, not ours.

Believe me! You will benefit from any and all of these things when visiting with one of our tutors. I know that I didn’t cover everything because there are so many things that the SWC does, but we want you to feel comfortable coming to us for any sort of writing question. There is no question too large or too small for us to tackle. Come see us, say Hi, and meet our tutors. We look forward to meeting you!

See you next time the sun is up, the breeze is cool, and the waves roll into view. ‘Til then, hang ten!