Portrait of the Tutor as an Artist October 2, 2012

As tutors we come into contact with dozens of essays, projects and presentations every week, through our writers. As we comment on and nudge along in our tutorials, we have a sense of aiding a writer in their work – but what about our work? Is our impact on the paper or Powerpoint more than just that of a nursemaid? I don’t know that most of us would call ourselves “authors” after working with others’ writing, but is tutoring in itself a creative act?

Conferences and the Writing Process February 4, 2012

Recently, I finally pushed past my fear of making purchases greater than a month’s rent and registered for this year’s Association of American Geographers (AAG) conference in New York. As a broke student, it’s often hard to justify expenses that rival my quarterly tuition bill, so I sought out the advice of my peers in the Writing Center to help me decide whether or not to go to NYC for AAG. At first, I expected my fellow students to encourage me to play it safe: Why spend so much money on a trip that will cost you a week’s pay and yield no more than a canvas tote bag and a pen? It’s simply not economic. However, to my surprise and ultimate delight, the encouragement of my peers forced me to reflect on my previous conference experiences and I eventually came to terms with the fantastic reality: conferences are where it’s at!

The 99% October 12, 2011

Undoubtedly you have heard of the “Occupy” protests that are gathering around the world. While I haven’t been down to the Chicago chapter as of yet (as one of the 99%, I work seven days a week), I have heard much of the atmosphere from blogs, friends, and the news. My most favorite incident was yesterday’s return of furniture from foreclosed homes to the front of a Bank of America, the furniture’s “rightful owner.”

Let’s Demystify the Writer September 21, 2011

Some have appropriated unto the process of writing a somewhat romantic picture. We imagine our favorite writers hunched over desks, grumbling to themselves through sips of whiskey in some dimly lit room on the Eastern Seaboard. Otherwise, they’re sitting in a bright and breezy space at a desk made of birch. The wind blows gauzy curtains back while the writer peeks out the window, smiles knowingly, and turns back to the page to write some moving meditation – in longhand of course. Where these images come from, we can only speculate. It could be Hollywood, our own projected veneration, or even from the writers themselves. Surely,

Workshopping Outside of School June 29, 2011

Can you count on one hand the number of people outside of school who have read your work? This is a shame.  You may be thinking, “talk about a blessing, not a curse,” but allow me for a moment to express just a few of the reasons why workshopping is so invaluable to writers of all levels, and can be done even outside of a workshopping class at school.

Shared Talk June 20, 2011

Are you studying a foreign language? Have you always wanted to become pen-pals with someone else who speaks the language, but don’t know very many people? And/or are you a native English speaker who wants to help an ESL individual by becoming their pen-pal?  If your answer to any of these questions is “yes,” then you may be interested in becoming a member of Rosetta Stone’s SharedTalk website.

DePaul Summer Writing Conference

Hey there, lovers of writing. Summer is underway (despite what the ambiguous weather may suggest), which also means that DePaul’s Summer Writing Conference is going to be coming up next month, July 15-17th.

Tools for annotating and sharing on the web May 9, 2011

Software that allows you to annotate, save and share websites with others not only makes web research more manageable but allows for greater opportunities for collaboration. Sites like Diigo and Scrible both allow you to mark up, save and share websites with comments and highlighted text.

Suburban Campus Writing Groups January 22, 2011

We’ve all been there.  The essay is assigned on Monday and you have every intention of starting on Tuesday.  Wednesday rolls around and you vow to spend at least an hour writing a first draft.  Thursday slips away and on Friday, the assignment sheet sits on your desk, stares you in the face and threatens to ruin your weekend.  The next two days are inevitably riddled with anxiety, frustration, and writer’s block, and Sunday night becomes a last ditch, all night effort to produce an essay that you hope will escape your professor’s close scrutiny.

Get your research published… on Wikipedia November 9, 2010

According to N.P.R., Wikipedia’s Public Policy Initiative has recruited professors from eight different universities (including Harvard and U.C. Berkeley) to incorporate Wikipedia into their courses on public policy. No, students will not be citing sources from Wikipedia. Rather, their research will be used to improve and  expand Wikipedia’s entries concerning public policy.