General Benefits of a Writing Center

Writing centers bring many different types of benefits to young writers. However, these benefits are not strictly limited to young writers; they can be enjoyed by anyone that a writing center allows to use its services, from high school freshmen to college grad students to professionals already in the business world.

Writing center sessions are designed around one-on-one tutoring sessions between the writer and a tutor. This one-on-one setting is beneficial because it provides a much more personal, relaxed and informal atmosphere for the writer. Writers can bring in a paper on any topic and get help with revision. The writing center is not based around content, but rather flow and cohesiveness. They also have the ability to continue to sign up for sessions with the same tutor, thus developing a relationship over time which helps in the future because the tutor gets to know the writer's personal style and sessions tend to flow much more smoothly.

In these one-on-one sessions every tutorial is different, because every writer is different. There is no standard used for a tutorial session in a writing center. Whatever the writer feels he/she needs to discuss or work on within their paper is what is focused on during the session, allowing the writer to take the session in whatever direction they wish. In addition to this, the writing center doesn't just fix a paper for a writer. The tutor helps the writer learn how to spot and fix their own mistakes, with the hope that the writer will employ these techniques in the future, thus bettering their future writing.

Any comments or suggestions that a tutor makes during a session are used at the writers discretion. There is no rule that states "What a tutor says, goes," or "Everything that your tutor tells you to do to your paper, you must." Each writer takes the suggestions from the tutor and applies whichever ones they agree with or feel will benefit their writing, thus also benefitting the writer because their paper is still their own and the tutor did not correct it for them.

Draft feedback is an important part of the writing process, and a writing center is the only place where a community is built solely around writing, with writers of all levels, and brainstorming of ideas is encouraged because a writer will not be judged within the writing center. In addition to the tutoring session, a writing center offers many other beneficial materials to help a writer learn about the writing process. For example, the University of Richmond's "Writers Web," offers information on correct form of citations, how to write a good thesis, ways to focus and connect ideas and much, much more.

Writing centers can benefit a writer in many different ways if they go in with an open mind and a willingness to listen to the suggestions given to them. The benefits mentioned here, however, are not the only ones that can be derived from a writing center session; many other more subtle benefits can occur that are more unique to a specific writer and their style of writing, and therefore are much too difficult to categorize. Let us summarize the benefits discussed above:

• Writing Centers are usually available to writers of all ages and levels
• One-on-one sessions help to build a relationship between the writer and tutor
• The relaxed and informal atmosphere helps to ease writers that may be nervous or uncomfortable
• A writer can bring in a paper on any topic and get help, because the Writing Center is designed to help flow and cohesiveness, not content
• Every tutorial is different, forming to the needs of the writer
• The writer decides what needs to be discussed and can direct their own tutorial
• Tutors don't just fix a paper, they help the writer to learn how to catch their own mistakes, lessening those mistakes in the future
• Comments and suggestions made by the tutor can be used at the discretion of the writer. Following them is not required
• The Writing Center is a community of writers there to help one another and not pass judgements
• Writing Centers offer other materials, separate from the tutorial sessions, that writers can use to learn different writing techniques.