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132WRITING CENTER

What we do

The Writing Center, staffed by PPCC faculty, instructors, professional tutors, and peer tutors offers a full range of one-on-one assistance with reading, writing, critical thinking and study skills. We serve students and faculty at all campuses, and we offer online tutoring via email and real-time chat as well. For reading and writing projects in any discipline, the PPCC Writing Center can help in a variety of areas including critical reading, topic focus, content development, organization, research strategies, documentation, and editing.

Students who visit the PPCC Writing Center, either by appointment or drop-in, should bring with them all materials needed for their current paper or project, including at least:
* A copy of the instructor’s assignment guidelines,
* Any relevant notes, prewriting, or working drafts, and
* Resources such a textbooks, journal articles, and/or class handouts.

What happens in the PPCC Writing Center?
  1. We welcome the student, and if we are already conferencing with another student, we'll try to find the time to quickly set a convenient later appointment.
  2. We may ask students to wait until our current conference concludes, and sometimes we ask new arrivals to fill out a
    Self-Referral Form to help guide the conference.

    During a Conference
  3. Our tutors ask students to explain the assignment, providing the instructor's written instructions so that tutor and writer may ensure that we both understand the assignment.
  4. We look over the student's notes, paper or project draft, asking the student to determine what to cover in each 30 minute conference session.
  5. We may ask students read their papers (or a section) out loud, or we may volunteer to read aloud so that students may hear how the text sounds. Reading aloud often helps writers find passages that need attention, and reading aloud often helps students discover revisions on their own.
  6. When others are waiting, Writing Center tutors may try working with several students either in small groups or individually, asking a particular writer to work through already-identified revisions or edits while moving on to help other writers, floating from writer to writer.  This can be quite effective for writers with quick questions about concrete issues such as punctuation, mechanics, manuscript conventions, computer use, or documentation.
  7. Often our tutors take notes as students brainstorm ideas, recording the students’ own vocabulary for their use in drafts and revisions as we work to help writers more clearly explain their point or the relevance that they see in a source quotation or a relevant text passage.
  8. Towards the end of the session, tutors may summarize the session and ask students to share what they may have learned.  We may note topics or issues that we may not have addressed in the session.
  9. Then we will usually suggest setting a follow up appointment at one of our four campus locations.
Students who want or need more help with self-editing or other features of the writing process, may wish to make regular appointments throughout the course of the semester. 
The Writing Center offers assistance with reading, writing, and critical thinking--the kind of assistance and coaching that is designed to emphasize and reinforce each student’s control over and responsibility for improving their skills as reader, writer, and thinker. We believe that this emphasis will help student write better papers, and we know that our responsibility is to HELP STUDENTS HELP THEMSELVES!
Accordingly, Writing Center tutors never grad papers and we never evaluate students, teachers, or assignments. We cannot guarantee perfect papers, and we cannot copy edit anyone's writing.
We do guarantee that WE CARE ABOUT YOU, and we guarantee that we will do our best to HELP YOU help yourself to succeed at PPCC.