About the On-Campus Writing Center

To work with a Writing Tutor on-campus, you will need to schedule an appointment by registering online at eou.mywconline.com/. Tutorials are held in the Writing Center on the second floor of Loso Hall in the Learning Resource Center. You will need to sign up for a tutor before 12 a.m. on the day you want to meet. Sessions are generally 30 minutes long. You may schedule a one-time appointment, or schedule an appointment for the same time every week. We encourage students to develop a relationship with one tutor with whom they work weekly. It is over time, with consistent effort, that students become more effective thinkers and writers.

How to Schedule an On-Campus Writing Tutor Session:

The Writing Center uses WCOnline, a web-based application that allows you to schedule your writing tutoring session online. Once you have registered and logged in, you will be able to view a schedule of available appointment times and tutors.

To Register:

1. Go to http://eou.mywconline.com/.
2. If this is your first time on WCOnline, click on the link “Click Here to Register.”
3. You must fill out all fields marked with asterisks to continue.
4. Once all fields on the form have been entered, click on “Register.” To schedule an appointment, return to the WCOnline main page and log in.

To Schedule an Appointment:

1. Go to http://eou.mywconline.com/.
2. After you login, you will see a view of the Writing Center’s schedule for the current week. White schedule blocks in the rows beside a tutor’s name indicates available appointment times.
3. Once you decide the day, time, and tutor you want to meet, click on the appropriate white block of time. The “New Reservation” window will now appear.
4. Please fill out all of the applicable fields. 
   Important: Appointments are scheduled on the half-hour and are set to default to 30 minute sessions. You may schedule up to 2 appointments per day and no more than 4 appointments per week.
5. Click “Save Appointment” to make your appointment. 
   Please note: you will receive an automated email reminder of your appointment and you may log back into WCOnline to change or cancel your appointment at any time up to 60 minutes before the start of your session. If you need to cancel an appointment later than that, please call the Student Desk at 2-3934.

If you have any difficulties scheduling an appointment on your own, please visit the Writing Center or call 2-3934 to request assistance.

Policies

• Tardiness: Students who arrive more than 15 minutes late for a session will be designated as a “no-show.”
• Cancellations: Cancel or change appointments online up to at http://eou.mywconline.com/.
• No-shows: A student who misses an appointment may have future appointments cancelled. After two no-shows, a student must meet with the Writing Center Director before scheduling another appointment.

Guidelines For Writers:
Using the Writing Center Effectively

Research shows that good writers rarely work in isolation, but instead seek responses to works-in-progress. Writers learn better by writing, talking, and getting feedback on their writing, and then rewriting and rewriting. We are here to provide that feedback at each point in your writing process, from getting started, to finding a focus, to developing your ideas, improving organization, or helping you find and correct your own errors.

 Bring your text, assignment sheet, and course syllabus to your session. It is important for both writer and responder to be clear about the professor's expectations. Also, please bring to your session your writer's handbook (such as Diane Hacker's A Writer's Reference) .

 Contact your tutor when you cannot make it to your session. At the first meeting, exchange phone and email information (fill out a Student-Writer Information Card). The tutor is a student too, with a full schedule, and "no shows" are very disheartening. Also, the tutor cannot be paid if you do not come to your session. In turn, the tutor will try to contact you if he or she cannot make a session, and he or she will try to reschedule.

 Consider where you might be in your Writing Process. Here are some questions to help you determine this:

• Are you at the invention/brainstorming stage, trying to generate ideas?
  
• Have you produced a rough draft, and are at the focusing stage, trying to find the center of gravity/thesis/focus of your paper?
  
• Do you have a clear sense of focus/purpose, and need help developing your ideas?
  
• Do you have a full, rich draft, but need help organizing your ideas?
  
• Are you at the editing stage, and need help seeing error patterns so you can learn how to correct them yourself?
  
• Are you writing a research paper, and need help with summarizing, paraphrasing, and documenting your sources?
  

Keep in mind that the writing process does not go in a straight line, and writers move forward and backward, and in and among these stages as they write.

 Plan ahead and begin drafting early to allow time to get feedback and revise.

 Bring typed drafts, double-spaced, if possible. It is difficult to "see" a paper if it is handwritten. However, if you are having trouble getting started, do not hesitate to come to your session without a draft. The Writing Tutor can give you some strategies to help you get started.

 Think about comments and suggestions that have been made on this and other papers you have written. You can significantly cut down your writing and revising workload, and can use your session more efficiently by getting a handle on your instructor's comments.

 Be an active collaborator in your session. Sit next to your tutor with a pencil in your hand as you work on your draft. Mark sections of your draft that you are unsure of and would like to concentrate on. Write down your questions. They can be very helpful. If you can pinpoint specific sections or sentences in your draft, you will not have to wait for the writing tutor to find them.

 Underline your focus/thesis sentences, or if you cannot find your focus, try putting what you think is your main point into one or two sentences.

 Try outlining what you've written so far. Outlining mid-process is a good way of rethinking the overall organization of your paper.

 Remember that a typical session is 30 minutes long. Have reasonable expectations of what you and a Writing Tutor can accomplish in this time. This session is only a small part of a writing process that ideally includes many stages, many drafts, many hours.

 If you wait until the last hour, with your writing due shortly after your session, do not expect a Writing Tutor to proofread your work, or to work miracles in 30 minutes. The Writing Center is not a "fix-it shop" or an editing service. Tutors can help you by pointing out your error patterns and showing you how to correct a few examples. Remember: Plan ahead and begin drafting early to allow time to revise and get feedback.