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

Encouraging Students to Use the Writing Center

We welcome faculty to spread the word about the Writing Center. Here are a few tips for faculty.


Mention it in class

  • We offer informal tours of the 412 Holmes location for your classes. Complete this form
  • Provide flyers (e-mail us at WritingCenter@Northeastern.edu and we can send them to you via campus mail)
  • Pull up our website and social media outlets (see icons in footer)
  • Walk them through how to make an appointment.
  • Bring them to either Writing Center location.

Add Syllabus Language

The Writing Center
The Northeastern University Writing Center offers free tutoring to serve and assist the broader Northeastern community at any stage of the writing process. Sessions are in-person at one of our two centers (412 Holmes Hall and 136 Snell Library) or online. Consultants in the Writing Center are undergraduates, graduate students, and teachers of writing who are trained to work on all aspects of writing across disciplines, from conceptualizing, to planning, researching, organizing, drafting, and revising. Consulting sessions last for 45 minutes and are tailored to serve each writer’s goals and concerns, with the understanding that writing growth is a continual process that cannot be completed in a single day or session. At the Writing Center, we affirm and value all languages and Englishes; we understand that writing serves multiple purposes and that effective writing takes many forms beyond the constraints of Standard American English.

To see our current hours or make an appointment, visit https://www.northeastern.edu/writingcenter or email WritingCenter@northeastern.edu.


Here’s how to do it:

  • That’s it! Now your students will see a link to the Writing Center’s homepage each time they’re in your Canvas course site.

Encourage, but don’t require

Some faculty require their classes to visit the Writing Center or offer a grade boost on an assignment if they do. However, these well-intended incentives have a few consequences:

  • It can create large spikes in demand for our services that our tutoring staff may not be able to handle.
  • Students may have decreased motivation for being there. Our tutors sometimes perceive that a writer doesn’t have a clear purpose for the session and later find out that they have been required to come.
  • Faculty often ask for proof that their students visited (a signed note, an email from the Writing Center), but our center maintains confidentiality about appointments in keeping with our interpretation of FERPA.

Instead, please spread the word about the Writing Center to your classes but consider not mandating students to come unless you are doing so a case-by-case basis.

Instructional Resources

Are you a faculty member looking for resources on how to embed writing instruction into your courses?

Visit the Writing Program to learn more about writing across the curriculum, effective feedback and assessment, multilingual writing pedagogy, and more.

View Instructional Resources