Hello! Welcome to the Writing Center.

We hope that your visit is productive and enjoyable—we like talking with writers about writing, and we’re glad you decided to stop in. To best meet the needs of a diverse student body, we have established some guidelines for using the Writing Center. They help us manage our time so that we can be the most productive consultants.

• The Writing Center is open to any member of the Boise State community, and our consultants will work with you at any stage of the writing process—planning, revising, editing. We are an active, collaborative learning center. We work with you, looking for ways to help you become the best writer possible. Our goal is to engage in conversations about your writing—asking questions we have as readers.



• Consulting sessions can be scheduled for 30 or 60 minutes (and we follow our time closely when other writers are waiting). We look to structure our conversations with you so that you can continue working on the piece of writing after the consultation—especially with longer papers. We might not talk about every sentence, but we’ll help you find ways to examine every sentence on your own.



• If the piece of writing you are working on is for a class, bring a copy of the assignment with you. If there is no written assignment sheet, please bring in a copy of the class syllabus. It is also helpful for consultants to know of any previous comments given by the teacher for whom you are writing. We know that all writing is produced within a certain context, and the more we know about the context, the better we can work with you.



• We are happy to fill out forms you might have from a teacher that ask for specifics about the consultation session—we can describe what we talked about and detail what changes you decided you might make to the paper (and you can request a copy of the Record of Consultation form, too). Please understand that we cannot fill out any forms that ask for some type of grade or evaluation—we cannot evaluate papers, or offer any suggestions as to marks. Instead, we talk with you about ways to best meet the stated criteria of an assignment, and about how clearly you are communicating your ideas to a particular reader. Grades and evaluations are to be given by the teacher.



• We do not limit the number of times you can visit the Writing Center, but we do ask that you not make more than one appointment at a time. And, if you’d like to schedule a weekly meeting with a consultant, we would be happy to arrange that.



• We keep all our consultation information confidential, but you may certainly request a record of any of your consultations. Just ask and we’ll fill out a form for you.



• The Boise State Writing Center expects that those writers who visit us will respect our guidelines and Boise State’s Student Code of Conduct. Any incidents of unacceptable behavior will be reported to the Conduct Office.

Again, we look forward to providing the writers at BSU with the best assistance possible and feel these guidelines help us to do that. If you have other questions, feel free to talk with the Writing Center Director, Mike Mattison: michaelmattison@boisestate.edu; 426-3585.