The Writing Center
Tutoring Policies
We provide tutoring for students in writing skills across the curriculum. In other words, writing tutoring is not limited to GCC students who are enrolled in English or ESL classes. Any GCC student enrolled in a class with a writing assignment is eligible to use the tutoring services. Tutoring is by appointment, and students are strongly encouraged to make appointments at least a day in advance. All appointments are for 30 minutes and are limited to 2 sessions per week, unless arranged otherwise with staff members.
Our goal is to help students become more independent, observant, and confident writers. Students can expect to be actively involved in their tutoring sessions.
The Writing Center is not a proofreading or editing service; tutors are not here to fix papers or ensure that you receive a good grade. Please proofread your paper before working with a tutor.
Writing Center tutors stress that writing is a process with definite stages. Tutors can help you with the various stages of the writing process such as brainstorming, outlining, and paragraph development, but they cannot write the paper for you.
Tutors can point out patterns of errors within a paper, but they will not point out and correct all of the specific errors on the page; this is part of your responsibility. Be aware that appointments are 30 minutes in length, so if you have questions about grammar or punctuation, please mark several examples in your paper that you would like to discuss.
We also realize that some students have preferences that a tutor speak their native language OR that the tutor be a native English speaker. Unfortunately, we can not always accommodate these requests. We will always make an attempt to assign students a qualified tutor, regardless of the tutor's native language.
If you have any questions, please ask one of the Learning Center staff members.
