Why Grad Writers Use the Writing Center
Appointments & Help
We will reopen for fall semester on Tuesday, September 8th. Check our Hours and Locations for more information.
Email [email protected] for questions about the Writing Center.
Phone: 612-625-1893
The Writing Center strives to be a safe, responsive environment in which graduate writers can plan, reflect, write, and revise with non-specialist but highly trained and interested co-mentors and readers.
Support with process and planning
Managing your writing and thinking time among all the other things in your life is an important part of life as a graduate student. Talking with someone else about the big picture—especially if that person is not the person’s instructor/advisor/supervisor!—is a huge help.
With a consultant, graduate writers might explore questions like, What writing and revision strategies work for me? Among all my commitments, how can I organize my work time? What are some reasonable tasks I can set for myself as I manage this complex project? What if I just don’t feel like writing, but I still have to find a way to do it?
Conversation with and/or feedback from interested, non-evaluative readers
Hearing how others understand (or misunderstand!) your writing can be both motivating and illuminating. Many writers have a strong, even overactive, inner critic; testing ideas with someone else can let in some valuable outside perspective! Conversations with readers help graduate writers make informed decisions about what they want to communicate with their intended audience(s).
With a consultant, graduate writers might explore questions like, I’m not sure how to introduce my paper—can we talk about possibilities? As an outsider, do you see any jargon in my fellowship application? I can’t even tell anymore if my chapter is making sense—can you give me an outside perspective?
- I was really stuck before I got to the Center. On my bus ride home, I was writing furiously on scrap paper—one page then two pages then three before I got to my stop. This session really got the juices flowing again. Thanks.
- I am so grateful for my writing consultant’s enthusiasm, insight, motivational support, interest in my thesis project, and constant optimism. She has helped me sort out critical aspects of my planning.
- What a great opportunity to work through these ideas. New insights came to me. My consultant is helping me to connect the tissue and give some coherence to this mess. She is interested and responsive, which really helps a dissertation writer who struggles to imagine his audience.
- I was amazed at the suggestions I received from my consultant. She was able to look past my obtuse engineering subject matter and communicate when I was being clear or unclear. She could then describe the reasons why some things were either clear or unclear. I feel that I gained tremendously by the contrasts she drew in my writing.
- My consultant made my dissertation seem exciting and even worth pouring my soul into. She helped me to build, organize, and feel good about my ideas. I left with a cool map to follow during my next week of writing.
- Thank you for being willing to help graduate students. Writing a dissertation has been a lonely and confusing process. I was so grateful to be able to talk to someone about my work and get help with it.
The above statements come from anonymous student surveys.