Axe ’Em, Jacks!
Our writing tutors are committed to the teaching and learning of writing. Tutoring services do not include editing your paper. Instead, we are here to teach you skills you can use both now and throughout your lifetime. Reach out today and let us help you generate ideas, deliver your message effectively and guide you through proper sentence structure.
Fall 2020 schedule
Online Writing Lab (OWL): Available to undergraduate and graduate students. Get a personalized review of any paper. Available Aug. 31 to Dec. 1, log in to your Brightspace by D2L account and view your list of ongoing courses for more information.
- View our OWL Dropbox tutorial
- View our OWL Feedback tutorial
Undergraduates
- Undergraduate walk-in tables: for papers in progress and rough draft review
- In-person: 1 to 6 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays at the AARC
- via Zoom: Zoom registration link
- 3 to 6 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays
1:1 and One-Time-Only appointments are currently booked. Early sign-ups are encouraged due to limited availability.
Graduates
- Graduate walk-in tables:
- In-person: 4 to 5 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays at the AARC
What to expect
Writing tutors will...
Writing tutors will:
- guide you on specific kinds of sentence level support and overall essay coherence
- clarify grammar rules
- explain writing conventions
- guide you as you revise and edit your own sentences
- and discuss style, language and rhetorical choices.
Writing tutors will not...
Writing tutors will not line-edit papers.
There are several reasons for this policy:
- Writers do not learn how to self-edit when someone else fixes errors for them. The AARC’s primary goal is to ensure students have access to learning opportunities that will make them stronger writers.
- It is not the tutor’s job to find every mistake in a draft. Copyediting is a career that requires a highly specialized skill set that can take years (and a degree) to develop. While student tutors find errors that may make a sentence’s meaning unclear, they are not professional tutors and do not have the training or experience to work on such a technical level.
- Line-by-line editing could violate SFA’s Academic Dishonesty policy. This would put both the writer and the tutor at risk of facing penalties such as failure and expulsion from the university.
- Tutors are students themselves! They simply do not have the time to complete or completely “fix” assignments for other students while simultaneously completing their own work.
Open Workshops
These virtual workshops are open to all SFA students and are free to attend. Explore the options below and visit the registration link for the workshop that fits your interest. After registering, you will instantly receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Sept. 23: The Road to Student Success
Are you having trouble getting on track? Join us for an overview of skills that will help you be successful in your classes, including time management, task prioritization, the study cycle and focused study sessions.
2:30 to 3:30 p.m. Zoom registration
5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Zoom registration
Oct. 13: Putting it Together - Essay Structure and Constructing a Thesis
Are you trying to get out of that five-paragraph essay structure from high school? This workshop will review tips on how to put together a college essay and how to craft a strong, detailed thesis.
3 to 4 p.m. Zoom registration
7 to 8 p.m. Zoom registration
Nov. 8: Cite it! MLA and APA Citations
Parenthetical and reference citations can be tricky. We will review the basics of MLA and APA citations to help you avoid plagiarism.
5 to 6 p.m. Zoom registration
If you have any questions, contact Kay Winfield, AARC writing and workshops program director, at winfieldkl@sfasu.edu or by phone at 936.468.1542.