"The Stony Brook Writing Center has had a presence on campus since at least the mid-1970s, making it one of the longer-running spaces in the field," says Harry Denny, the former director of the writing center, which is located on the second floor of the Humanities Building. But though faculty and teaching assistants in Stony Brook's Writing Program all know of the writing center and tend to encourage their students to go there for help, graduate students in other departments perhaps don't know of the valuable services the center provides.
T.A.s in any field who require written assignments of their students should feel confident sending their undergraduates to the writing center for help with their writing. Regardless of how rough a piece of writing is, well-trained undergraduate and graduate student tutors are eager to help students at any stage of the writing process. Jody Cardinal, the center's current director, notes that "Tutors will help with anything from understanding an assignment to brainstorming ideas to developing an organizational structure to revising polished prose, and visiting the Writing Center at an early stage in the process often helps writers talk through and generate new ideas."
However, graduate students might even consider using the center themselves. Indeed, the idea that a writing center is only for students who have a particularly hard time with writing is a common misconception, and according to Cardinal, tutors at the writing center assist undergraduate and graduate students as well as faculty and staff with their writing: "Our tutors help with all types of writing from any course on campus as well as writing for other purposes, such as personal statements for graduate or medical school applications. The variety of writing we see includes lab reports, research papers, literary analyses, personal narratives, master's theses, and dissertations."
In particular, Cardinal notes that graduate students might benefit from visiting the writing center because of the inherent complexity of the ideas they're working with. "Writing about difficult material clearly is a key challenge of graduate school," Cardinal explains. "But tutors in the writing center can help graduate students assess whether they are communicating their ideas successfully to readers and identify areas that would benefit from clarification. Also, for graduate students working on longer projects like master's theses or dissertations, having a writing center appointment weekly or every two weeks can provide useful self-imposed deadlines to help them stay on track and keep writing."
According to India Schneider-Crease, who has worked as a tutor at Stony Brook's writing center for two semesters, graduate students sometimes seem reluctant to get help even though tutors at the center are fully trained to assist them with their needs as writers. "Perhaps they feel uncomfortable working with a tutor at first," says Schneider-Crease. "But once they get comfortable, they actually find that sessions can be really productive and useful even if they're already quite confident as writers."
Alli Buss, who has worked as a tutor in the writing center for three semesters, notes that her experiences with graduate students who come in are also quite positive. "My favorite part is that they're so eager to learn," Buss observes. "I've been working with one grad student in particular over the last few weeks, and we've gone over just an amazing range of material. Currently, we're looking at the kind of writing in her field and analyzing the components during our sessions. I'm trying to help her find her own voice in her field so that she can be more confident."
Graduate students who have used the center also seem to have nothing but positive feedback about it. "Being an English major at the Graduate level, it seems funny that I have never before been to a writing center," says Marie Burkhardt. "But after making an appointment as part of an assignment for class, I realized what I'd been missing all of these years. It was an enlightening experience, and even if students don't think they need help with their writing, it really helps to hear another perspective."
Graduate student Tracey Evans agrees with Burkhardt. "Writing is never an easy thing for anyone," Evans observes. "But having someone who works in the field give you guidance can make the task much easier. Really, I think if graduate students were more inclined to go to the writing center they would see a dramatic improvement in their written reports and essays."
"It's so important to get as many opinions as possible on your writing," says Buss, now reflecting more generally on her experience as a tutor. "It's not just about having someone read your paper; it's about having someone to bounce your ideas off of." Ultimately, coming into the writing center gives any student the opportunity to get a reader to respond to ideas and how those ideas come together and come across.
By Liliana M. Naydan
Questions or comments? Jody Cardinal, the director of Stony Brook's writing center, can be contacted at jcardinal1@optonline.net. Liliana Naydan, SBGradMag's editor, can be contacted at lnaydan@ic.sunysb.edu. For more general information on the writing center, visit the center's website at www.stonybrook.edu/writingcenter.
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