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CLOSED FOR WINTER BREAK SPRING '24 TUTORING STARTS JAN. 22

1-to-1 Consultations

Graduate students can schedule 1-on-1 appointments with tutors in the Writing Center. Please keep in mind that:

  • We are a multidisciplinary Writing Center that serves undergraduates, graduates, and faculty. You will likely be working with an undergraduate or graduate student, and they may not be a specialist in your field of study.
  • Our consultations are 45 minutes long, and we do not read material before the session.

The following strategies may help you have more successful sessions with achievable goals.

  1. Consider a realistic goal for a 45 minute session. For example, this might include how many pages you’d like to go over and distinguishing between macro discussions (about structure) and micro discussions (about grammar and vocabulary). Typically, for big-picture discussions, you can cover more pages during a consultation. For closer looks at grammar and vocabulary, you might only be able to comb through a few pages.
  2. Schedule multiple appointments with the same tutor. Our appointment system will not allow you to book two appointments on the same day. If you would like to schedule two appointments back-to-back to have an extended session, please contact the Assistant Director of the Writing Center at least one week in advance. This exception is only for clients who are bringing in a draft of a dissertation, thesis, or manuscript, and it is subject to the availability of our tutors.
    Note: during concurrent sessions, tutors may request a 15 minute break after the first 45-minutes, or they may end the session at 90 minutes.
  3. Schedule more than two appointments per week. The system will not allow you to book more than 2 appointments per week. As a graduate student, this limit doesn’t apply to you. Please contact the Assistant Director of the Writing Center to make more than 2 appointments.
  4. Bring in mentor texts. Mentor texts are clear examples of a certain kind of writing; we look to them to teach us the style and form of a genre. For example, if you are drafting a manuscript for a journal in your field, bring in an example of an article in that journal so that your consultant can see a model of what you’re trying to write. If you’re not sure where to find a mentor text, ask your advisor or another professor/professional in the field.
  • Listen to your ideas and help you outline
  • Ask you questions about your research to help you highlight its significance
  • Provide feedback on structure, transitions, and the progression of your argument
  • Give refreshers on library research strategies
  • Help you analyze your mentor texts and discover the linguistic forms of your discipline
  • Read for grammar/clarity and provide assistance with editing and choosing appropriate words
  • Connect you to resources about writing in your discipline
  • Act as a substitute for your advisor
  • Provide discipline-specific feedback on your content
  • Edit your paper for you. We believe that the writer should always be in the “driver’s seat” in terms of working on the paper.

The Writing Center seeks to accommodate writers who need special arrangements for whatever reason. If you feel you need more time in your session, please email  k.gonso@northeastern.edu to discuss your needs. We can extend the length of individual sessions, the amount of weekly appointments, or the platforms we use for conducting tutoring, among other things.

Graduate Writing Events

The Northeastern Writing Center regularly holds events for graduate students. Our programming aims to help PhD and Master’s students explore common genres, boost productivity, and build scholarly writing communities.

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We also cross-post key events to the PhD Network Calendar.