Scheduled hours: From 8 to 10pm Sunday–Thursday, you can drop by the Writing Café on the third floor of the library. During some semesters, tutors are also available for drop-ins in the Writing Center (SG 264) MWF 12:30-1:30 and M-Th 4:15-5:15. You can also set up an appointment in advance.  

On-call hours: To work with a tutor outside of these times, you can reach out directly to any tutor. Tutors have busy schedules and limited hours, so it's good to plan ahead. Any tutor can work with writers in any subject. They’re listed below with their majors. Email or text the tutor of your choice to make an appointment and agree on where/how to meet: in-person or on Zoom, FaceTime, etc.

All tutoring is synchronous. 

Quick drop-in sessions are good for brainstorming and looking at an assignment or draft together. This may also be a good option if you have a quick citation question or if you just need help understanding an assignment. 

Deep Dive sessions are great if you want the tutor to help you look at things like organization and help you resolve any trouble spots with grammar and punctuation. It’s best—but not required—to submit your paper in advance so the tutor can spend time with it before you meet. A session could go down like this:

1. Share your paper or Google Doc with the tutor’s principia.edu email. The tutor will download your file and make comments in the document. 
2. When you meet in person or online, the tutor will share the new document with you and you can ask questions. The tutor will not correct grammar/punctuation/spelling but will notice if there are patterns of error and show you how to fix them.
3. Note that if you don’t “show up” for the scheduled time with the tutor, you will not receive any feedback.

Tips  for the best tutoring session of your life…write on!

BEFORE

• Sign up for a tutoring session ahead of time, and—especially—note what you’d like help with. Be as specific as you can.
• If it’s been a while since you thought about your paper, read it again to remind yourself what it’s about so you can explain what you want to work on.
• Bring a printed copy of your paper, the assignment sheet, and a pen or pencil.
• Think about some solid but realistic goals of what you want to achieve during your half-hour session. We can help with this, too.
• Consider having several tutor sessions over a number of days.

DURING                          

• Tell your tutor about any comments or specific instructions from your professor.
• Be willing to engage with your ideas and your tutor in order to dig into your writing! Ask questions when you don’t understand.
• Prioritize so you have time to fix the most important things in your paper.
• Take notes on your paper during the session so you remember all of the changes you want to make.
• Remember, we are here to help you improve your paper and to show you strategies to help with all of your writing. Let’s work on this as a team!

AFTER

• Don’t wait too long to apply the changes to your paper.
• If you realize you need more help with your paper, come back!