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Cooper Center > Writing Workshop
How do consultants help me with a paper?
 When
you come to the Cooper Center, one of our trained consultants
will review your paper with you and offer suggestions for
how you might effectively revise it. Although conferences
vary, according to the style of the consultant and the amount
of time you have to spend, there are certain things that a
consultant will and won't do in a conference.
Consultants Will
- Read your paper or ask you to read it aloud
- Listen carefully and perhaps make notes
- Show you effective and less effective parts of your paper
- Ask you questions to help you identify a claim or develop your points
- Mark passages that seem wordy or unclear
- Demonstrate ways of revising a sentence
- Point out errors and explain why they are wrong
- Ask you to locate errors of a similar type
- Identify patterns of errors in your writing
- Help you develop strategies to revise papers on your own
Consultants Won't
- Write your paper for you
- Revise your paper for you
- Ridicule your writing
- Guarantee a grade for the revision
- "Fix" your paper without your being present
Writing Center Mission and Philosophy Statement
The Writing Workshop serves all members of the academic community, faculty and students, who wish to improve their writing or to study the teaching of writing. The Writing Workshop operates based on a number of premises:
- Writing or composing is a process
- The art of composing is also the art of revising; neither is exclusively a solitary activity, but each involves input from others
- In the art of composing or revising, one learns new things about one's subject
- All writers, regardless of their experience or ability, benefit from an engaged reader's response
- While we face special challenges when we attempt to teach some parts of writing (creativity, finding a voice), we can identify and analyze many parts of the writing process and individual texts in order to help others improve their strategies and performances
- A writer who succeeds with one piece of writing will not automatically succeed in future writing projects; growth in writing is also a process
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