Online Tutoring

Fall 2007

Greetings Students,

The Writing Center is starting a new initiative specifically targeted to distance learners.  Because distance learning students do not come on campus for class, having to come on campus for feedback or help with development of their papers seems wrong.  We are, therefore, offering for the first time this coming 2007 Fall semester an online writing lab, or OWL, to help students develop stronger academic papers.

The Writing Center wants the OWL to be successful and not risk crossing any clear or perceived academic protocols, so a few ground rules will be observed by our tutors:
  • Tutors will not comment directly in text but upon reflection post feedback at the end of the student’s text on what was written well and suggestions on how to improve the text.  Responses might include LOCs (low order concerns) but major responses will focus on HOCs (high order concerns).
  • Tutors may highlight one or two sentences/passages they feel are exceptional in thought or execution.
  • Tutors may highlight one or two sentences/passages they feel best represent weak execution.
  • Tutors will try to respond within 24 hours to papers.  The turn around time will depend on the level of business in the Writing Center at a given time.  Priority will be given to real time drop in students.
  • Tutors will treat OWL sessions the same as real time sessions and not exceed 30 minutes per session.
    • Students will be allowed to resubmit papers after revision with new questions at any time.
Students should also be made aware of the format needed to have a successful OWL session:
  • Papers should be sent by email to the writing center, wcenter@jccc.edu as a word document ATTACHMENT.
  • Students should identify in the text of the email for which discipline and instructor the paper is being written (this information is essential for end of the semester assessment purposes).
  • The body of the email should identify what the student would like from the tutor; e.g. see if the paper is clear; if the thesis statement is strong or clear; is the formatting correct (APA/MLA/Turabian)? If not, then what does the student think might be wrong?  Does the support connect to the main idea?
  • Students should also provide information on what the writing assignment is to cover.  Some students will have e-copies of the assignment, others are invited to duplicate in writing the prompt given them or a brief synopsis of the assignment.
On-campus students may continue to submit short questions about structure or grammar or may go to our handouts link on this page for more detailed answers and examples.
A session that is face to face is always better than mediated through space and time over a computer; with this fact in mind, tutors will invite students to come into the Writing Center for more clarification and detailed responses.  Our hope in the Writing Center is that we become more adept at reaching all students who might benefit from writing tutorials.  We truly believe that an OWL can be of great service to students if used wisely and professionally.  If you have any questions or concerns please contact me, Kathryn Byrne, kbyrne4@jccc.edu  or x3497. 

To contact the Writing Center, please email us at wcenter@jccc.edu.