Writing Center Serves Students During Finals

You've been staring at the computer screen for who knows how long, the page is still blank and your final paper is due tomorrow. The Valley College Writing Center offers help to students not only at the center but online too.

The Writing Center, located in the humanities building in rooms 100 and 102, allows students who are unable come in during office hours to email their papers to tutors and also offers a variety of services to aid students working on class writing assignments.

"We help students with assignments in any discipline that has a reading, writing or critical thinking component," said Scott Weigand, writing center tutor/coordinator.

The center helps students of all reading and writing levels, working with students in courses ranging from ESL classes to student in classes such as English 103 and are near graduation.

Among the listed goals of the writing center are to encourage intellectual experimentation among both students and faculty and to empower students to read and write in disciplines across the curriculum.

"I think my writing has improved since I've been coming here," said business major, Marie Marinelli. "The tutors are really honest and they're helpful."

According to statistics kept by the Valley office of student tracking, students who go to the writing center regularly show a 14 percent improvement in their grades.

All of the tutors at the writing center are also students, providing a comfortable tutoring situation for students according to Weigand.

"A lot of students feel like there's a lot at stake when they ask questions in the classroom," Weigand said. "They don't want the teacher to know that they don't know something."

The Writing Center's webpage can be accessed via the Valley College website. Here students can e-mail papers to tutors and receive detailed feedback on their papers via the Internet. Three times a week students have the opportunity to attend workshops on a variety of topics from how to use a comma to how to develop a thesis. The STARS program, a forum for students and faculty to meet and discuss issues concerned with education, is also housed in the Writing Center.

The Writing Center's hours are from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Friday.