Week Ten Essay: Visiting the Writing Center

Writing. OU Writing Center. 

This week, I did something that I have never done in my time at the University of Oklahoma. I am currently working on a term paper that will determine my grade in one of my political science classes, so I decided to visit the OU Writing Center.

It is somewhat embarrassing that I haven't ever been to the Writing Center before. It is a very helpful place and I preach about it all the time. As a Small Group Leader for Camp Crimson and a Peer Teaching Assistant for Freshmen Programs and Gateway to College Learning. My students always ask me to proofread their papers and I do so and then tell them to visit the Writing Center just to double-check. I probably tell people to visit the Writing Center at least twice a week for the past three years and I have never been myself.

I went into the session knowing that I needed help organizing my thoughts and correctly using APA style. My professor was very specific about the type of citations we had to use and I needed some help double-checking my citations. Furthermore, another big goal I had for the session was to make sure that my ideas made sense to someone else. They made sense to me because I have been working tirelessly on this paper for weeks but they might not make sense to someone else.

The tutor I was paired with was so helpful! I have heard good and bad things about the Writing Center before but, didn't know exactly what to expect. My tutor was very patient with me with all my questions about citations. He didn't act as if I was dumb or act annoyed and was very calm in his approach to writing. I really appreciated the calm way he spoke and how helpful he was.

I took away a lot from this session. First, I gained some valuable insight into strategies for better formatting. I was able to run my ideas by someone to see if they made sense at all, and I realized that I have been missing out and wished that I would have went to the Writing Center sooner.

I will definitely be using the OU Writing Center again in the future for research-type papers. They were so helpful!