Tutoring Faculty Referrals

When students need help with writing, we encourage faculty to recommend or require that they make an appointment with a tutor at the ASC. Although students are welcome to come to the ASC at any point and do not need a faculty referral, we find that they are more likely to take advantage of tutoring services when they receive referrals from their professors. Thus we have created a form for referrals and feedback.

Using this form has several advantages. First, identifying specific areas for students to work on helps them focus and allows them to see their difficulties as manageable. Second, tutors can be much more helpful when they know what the instructor wants the student to focus on. Finally, the referral form also allows tutors to provide feedback to instructors so that instructors can follow up accordingly. In this way, the tutoring sessions can become an integrated part of the course instruction.

We strongly encourage faculty to use the form below. Please let us know if you have any questions about the referral process or if there is anything else that we can do to help your students as effectively as possible.

Referral Form (pdf)

How Writing Tutors Help Instructors

Writing tutors will:

• Try to identify if the student is following the assignment or answering the question posed
• Work on the introduction, thesis, and topic sentences to see if the essay reflects that structure and proves that point
• Work on paragraph organization, division, and cohesion, also taking note of transitions and flow between paragraphs
• Identify how students incorporate and cite information
• Point out the most blatant and reoccurring errors in grammar and punctuation

One session does not ensure a “perfect” assignment, and tutors cannot guarantee grades. Also, as tutors have not necessarily taken your class, they can cover basic concepts, but they cannot be expected to determine whether or not a student has the “right answer.”