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), with a maximum of 2 hours per week. 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 or syllabus with you. 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 keep all our consultation information confidential, but you may certainly request a record of any of your consultations.

• 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.

 

Attendance and Cancellation Policies

• Those who miss an appointment will be marked as a "no-show."  If you accidentally miss one appointment, we'll send you a reminder of our policies. Those with two no-shows in one semester will forfeit appointment privileges during that semester.  However, you can still use the Writing Center on a walk-in basis, if there is an available consultant to work with you.

• If you need to cancel an appointment, you can do so by logging in to our online scheduler and deleting your appointment listed under “My Control Panel” or by calling us at 426-1298.  You need to cancel your appointment at least ONE HOUR before your appointment. If you cancel your appointment less than one hour ahead of time, this will qualify as a no-show (please see our policy above regarding no-shows).

 

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 email Melissa Keith: melissakeith@boisestate.edu.