About Us
The Writing Centre is a free facility for all Memorial University students, undergraduate or graduate, who want help with their writing. It also offers distance students an online tutorial option. Staffed by a director and by university students trained as writing tutors, the Writing Centre's mandate is to help university students become better writers and critical thinkers.
PLEASE NOTE: Tutors at the Writing Centre no longer conduct tutoring sessions on laptops. Please bring a hard copy of your work to your session!
We help writers who are having trouble getting started by asking them questions that assist them in formulating and organizing their ideas. We help writers in the midst of their writing by being attentive listeners and readers, encouraging them where necessary to sharpen their focus and to more fully explore and develop their ideas. And we help writers of completed drafts to develop their self-evaluation and proofreading skills.
The Centre provides individualized tutorials to students from all schools and faculties. Typically, these tutorials do not exceed one hour's duration. It can also organize small group workshops on request.
It is helpful to remember that the Writing Centre is not, in its
essence, a remedial facility—a place for "bad" writers. While
it does help students in need of remediation, it also helps
students who write quite well but who recognize that improvement is
both possible and desirable. All writers can benefit from a
trained, objective second reader, and the Writing Centre offers
Memorial University students just that!
We also offer:
- In-class introductions to the Writing Centre
- In-class workshops on writing topics identified by instructors
- Reference materials and resources on writing
- Grammar and composition workshops (We welcome suggestions for workshop topics!)
TO MAKE APPOINTMENTS:
Simply drop by SN2053 or call
737-3168!
Graduate students can also make appointments by emailing
vryan@mun.ca (please specify in your email that you are a
graduate student).
The Writing Centre works on an appointment basis
in order to reduce wait times and guarantee that tutors are
available to work with you. You can only make one appointment at a
time, but you can schedule a follow-up appointment at the end of
your tutorial session. As always, tutorial sessions can last up to
45 minutes.
If a tutor is free and a student drops by, the tutor will work with
that student, but only if it is not interrupting the appointment
schedule. If no tutors are free and a student drops by, we will not
be able to see that student, but the student can make an
appointment for some other time.
Tutors in the QEII Library Commons work with students on a drop-in, first-come-first-served basis.