We have three different services: 50-minute in-person appointments in room AV2-204, 50-minute appointments on Zoom, and an online “paper drop-off” service for written feedback on our Canvas page. In-person and Zoom reading and writing appointments can be made by visiting room AV2-204 or by calling (559) 675-4846.
Student writers can walk in at any time and see if a tutor is available, but we encourage you to make one or more appointments when you know you’d like to work with someone.
Much of the work that student writers bring to us comes from MCC's English courses, but we help with writing from any class that has it. Whether students have a draft from a history course about the Civil War, an article review from a nursing or biology course, or a PowerPoint presentation from an art course, we can read and respond to whatever writers are working on.
You can make three 50-minute appointments per week, and we can schedule you to work with a tutor up to two weeks in advance. Whether it’s in person or online, we encourage student writers to be proactive about it. If you know you have more than one big question you want answered, make time for more than one appointment!
Yes, just let our front desk know that you’d like to schedule a group appointment. We can have multiple tutors help multiple student writers if the need arises or schedule multiple appointments so each writer in the group can get the attention they deserve.
No! If you want to get started on a writing prompt but aren’t sure what to do, you can bring it in, create a plan, and generate ideas with a tutor. Student writers can bring partial drafts for feedback, as well.
Yes and no. While we are happy to help students address questions about grammar, Reading and Writing tutors strive to give students the power to make their own corrections. This means that both tutor and writer will examine texts together for patterns of error, but writers must be prepared to read their own drafts closely to self-correct those patterns.
You can, but remember that reading and responding to writing takes time! We'll always try to do what we can, but we always encourage student writers to make an appointment (or multiple appointments) as soon as they realize that they'll need some help.
