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Writing Center

Choose which type of resource you would like to view:
WA Best Practices

These readings are meant to inform and improve your one-on-one sessions with students in the Writing Center through their discussion of empathetic tutoring practices.

WA Best Practice

WA Tips & Tricks

WA Bethany Gen created this helpful guide of questions and reminders for both new and experienced WAs to use during sessions in the Writing Center.

Working With Transfer Student Writers

This article discusses how to better support students who transfer adjust their writing process and expectations within a new institution.

Conversation and Transformative Learning

WA Meredith Warden explains how conversation between a WA and student during Writing Center sessions can help students strengthen their own internal dialogue about writing.

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Athletics and Writing

WA Leo Ross created this guide to help student athletes better balance major writing assignments with the demanding time commitments of varsity sports.

Podcast: Navigating Writing Center Space

WA Sylvie Weinstein discusses various techniques Writing Associates can use to make sure they are aware of the space they take up during a Writing Center session.

Empathetic Listening in the Writing Center

This article discusses the importance of empathetic listening in a Writing Center setting, both between tutors and students and amongst tutors.

Helping Students Conquer Anxiety in a Session

This article guides peer tutors through understanding causes of anxiety for students coming into the Writing Center and how to help them manage it.

Cross-Cultural Kids and the Imposition of Standard English

WA Ryo Adachi explores the concept of Cross-Cultural Kids, and how growing up in a mixture of cultures impacts the way CCK students use English in an academic setting.

Anxiety in the Writing Center

WA Zoë Luh made this infographic to guide both WAs and students through managing their anxiety during sessions in the Writing Center

Making the Writing Center More Accessible to Kinesthetic Learners

WA Eva Wynn writes about techniques WAs can incorporate that are helpful for students who learn kinesthetically. 

The Writing Process
The Writing Process

These resources can help you guide students through various stages and aspects of the writing process.

Rhetorical Terms: Ethos, Pathos, Logos

This handout introduces the concepts of ethos, pathos, and logos and explains why the concepts are important to academic writing. 

The Rhetorical Triangle

A basic graphic showing the rhetorical triangle.

7 Habits of Effective Writers

This document covers best practices that can help a student at every stage of the writing process.

Tips for Successful Brainstorming

This handout is designed to help students feeling stuck begin the process of brainstomring.

Questions to Ask When Constructing a Thesis

This worksheet helps students feeling stuck start crafting a strong thesis.

Integrating Quotes

This handout provides sentence structures for integrating quotes into essays using the "they say, I say" method.

Writing a Close Reading

This handout defines close reading and walks students through how to do it.

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Podcast: The Writing Process Across Majors​

WA Sydney Parker interviews students of various disciplines about how their writing processes differ.

How to Approach a Scholarly Article

This handout provides instructions for how to successfully approach an academic article when you plan to write about it.

Analysis, Summary, and Interpretation

This guide provides helpful definitions of the above terms and breaks down the differences between them.

Writing a Title, Introduction, and Thesis

This handout walks students through various approaches they can take in writing a title, introduction, and thesis. It provides a worksheet to help them to start doing so.

Crafting a Good Paragraph

This document outlines the basic elements that make up a good academic paragraph and explains how to avoid common pitfalls.

Questions to Ask When Writing a Conclusion

This worksheet has students answer questions about their essay to help them write a compelling conclusion.

Comparing and Contrasting

This document helps students identify when an assignment requires comparing and contrasting then walks them through writing compare/contrast essays. It comes from the UNC Writing Center.

Mechanics and Grammar
Mechanics and Grammar

These resources can help you walk students through the more technical, nitty gritty aspects of their writing.

Grammar Guides

These guides provide examples of the most common grammatical errors and explain how to fix them.

7 Deadly Sins of Writing

This guide walks through common writing issues and how to avoid them.

Eliminating Wordiness

This document explains the mechanics of eliminating wordiness to write more concisely.

Common Writing Mistakes

This document outlines common errors with punctuation, sentence structure, and word choice and explains how to fix them.

Writing Concisely

This handout explains the mechanics of writing more concisely and provides tips for doing so.

Passive vs. Active Voice

This guide outlines how to recognize and fix passive voice in academic writing.

Modifiers

This guide explains dangling and misplaced modifiers and how to fix them.

Multilingual and ESOL Writers
Mulitilingual and ESOL Writers

These resources can help you better guide writers and speakers of different language backgrounds through the writing process.

White Language Supremacy Resource Guide

This website includes resources from scholars who advocate for language diversity and from Oberlin students.

Unique, Not Foreign

This essay, written by former WA Joanne Eun Jung Lee, critiques traditional writing tutoring for ESOL students and explores a new way to tutor multilingual writers.

Verb Tenses

This handout walks through twelve common English verb tenses and when to use them.

White Language Supremacy and CCKs

This visual guide explores White Language Supremacy through the cultural iceberg model. It was created by WA Ryo Adachi in Fall 2020.

White Mainstream English's Hold on Self-Promotional Writing

WA Maya Sagarin explains the paradox of White Language Supremacy WAs must navigate when helping students with self-promotional writing such as fellowship applications and personal statements.

Children of Immigrants and their Relationship with English

WA Jaimie Yue advocates for the importance of understanding that multilingual students whose parents are immigrants have a unique relationship with White Mainstream English.

Common Differences Between English and Chinese

This guide was created by Oberlin's International Student Resource Center. It's designed to help students from China learn the conventions of U.S. academic writing. 

WAs Explain: Translanguaging

WA Ryo Adachi discusses the idea of "translanguaging" and how WAs can help multilingual writers consciously code mesh as a rhetorical choice.

Writing as a Social Act for ESOL Students

WA Jaimie Yue explains how WAs can use conversation with ESOL writers as a tool to fully understand the context of their writing, and therefore guide them more effectively.

Reimagining Reading an ESOL Writer’s Text as a Spectrum

WA Evan Swanson argues that the assimilationist, accommodationist, and separatist tutoring approaches should be seen as a spectrum, rather than binaries, when working with ESOL writers.

Have a resource or handout that you think is awesome? Email owap@oberlin.edu!

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