First, we at the Writing Center are very glad that you decided that you are interested in understanding our services; we are always happy to explain our practices to new potential clients.

While your writing class likely provides some excellent strategies and assignments that ask you to practice working with those writing strategies, the most beneficial aspect of the Writing Center is our one-on-one consulting. We have 5o-minute and 1 hour and 50-minute sessions available, and during this time a trained consultant is focusing her or his attention on you and your text. You are allowed to schedule up to four hours a week with us. Instructors are just not able to provide this much one-on-one time with all students.These sessions are also completely confidential, so you don't have to tell your instructor that you are coming to see us if you don't want to.

While I believe both these points make the writing center a useful resource, it is the specific way we approach writing that makes our services most useful. Our goal is to help all of our clients become the kinds of writers they want to be (rather than just focusing on fixing a single paper). I'm a PhD student who has spent the past ten years studying and teaching writing, and I still schedule appointments with my fellow consultants (undergrads and grad students) to work on my own writing. Whether I am trying to plan out a project, am struggling with a draft, or need a reader to help me identify areas of my text that are confusing or could use some focused revision, I always leave a session having realized something about my own writing. The other consultant and I spend all of our time thinking about and talking about my writing; it is that talking, the conversations we have, that is most helpful.

Sometimes, however, for various reasons, there is less conversation and more "mistake fixing." At times, clients come in without exactly knowing what we do and might ask for "grammar help" if they don't know or don't believe that we could help with anything else. Other clients might come in asking for grammar help because a professor is a tough grader when it comes to errors, so they are looking to make their papers error-free. We try to keep from editing or just working on grammarr. However, sometimes a session might focus primarily on editing. While our consultants are trained to look to other writing issues, that consultant might think a client only wants to work on grammar or might not quite be able to notice what else the text needs. Miscommunications happen for various reasons, since the most effective sessions involve communication from both the client and consultant.

Generally, though, while we do think grammar is an important part of writing, we usually try to focus on what we call High Order Concerns--whether the text follows the assignment requirements, if the text is clear and understandable, if the organizational structure fits the requirements and what the text is trying to accomplish, and other such issues that, if major changes were made, would lead to significant rewriitng. When this kind of revision occurs, there is usually no point in working on editing since the text will just need to be edited again. 

What helps Writing Center sessions be most successful is for the client and consultant to collaborate at the beginning of a session to decide writing concerns the session will focus on. It helps a great deal if the client has thought about, before the session, what kinds of writing concerns he or she has. The more a writer knows about his or her needs, the easier it is for consultants to meet those needs. Otherwise, we have to try to figure out on our own where to focus a session in a way that makes the time most useful for the client. Sometimes, unfortunately, we get that wrong.

I hope this explanation has been helpful. You actually asked a question with a pretty complex answer. If you want to know more about the MSU Writing Center, please feel free to make an appointment to talk with a consultant, or you can respond within this forum. You can feel free to make an appointment with me directly if my response has been helpful and you want to know more. You can schedule an appointment by clicking on the red "Schedule an Appointment" tab. If you have never registered for our online scheduling site, you will also need to register as a new user for this site. Please let us know if you have any additional questions.

Elena

Being enrolled in a writing class is great. However, you may still benefit from visiting the writing center. Consultants at the writing center do not correct papers or make simple grammar corrections, rather they talk to writers about issues that concern them.  Often writers are concerned about issues such as the flow of the paper, or the overall coherence.

A good way to think about the help of the writing center is having someone who can read your writing with a fresh pair of eyes and offer constructive feedback based on the specific concerns you have.

Hope this helps.