A Trip to the Writing Center

by Travis Rocha

If I’m any good at writing, it’s because I had incredible teachers, peers and parents who reviewed my work countless times and taught me what to do and what not to do. I felt relatively prepared for college writing when I arrived at Christopher Newport, but there’s always room for improvement. So, when I took my English essay to the writing center (a division of the Center for Academic Success) last week, I was ready for any and all feedback.

I signed in and immediately sat down with my assigned editor for a one-on-one feedback session. They suggest that you come to your session with a specific question in mind, to make the most out of the visit. I was concerned with my organization and how everything came together. My editor and I read the paper together and chatted along the way. She thought my organization was fine and that everything synthesized well, so I was good on that front. However, she did find a few grammatical errors which I had completely overlooked and gave me advice on some of my citation issues. I was there for 45 minutes and the time flew by; I couldn’t believe how much work we had gotten done!

My editor was extremely pleasant and personable. The writing center offers a very comfortable environment to express your concerns without judgement (and scheduling an appointment is as easy as logging into your student account and clicking a time slot). I definitely plan to use the writing center as a resource much more often. Christopher Newport offers so many different outlets to better yourself academically, it’d be a shame to not take advantage of them!