About Us

About the Writing Center:
At the Writing Center, we conduct free, one-on-one sessions with undergraduate and graduate students to assist them with course writing assignments, research papers, theses, and personal statements. We schedule sessions that start on the hour and last either 25 minutes or 50 minutes. Trained graduate and undergraduate peer tutors help students develop and focus their ideas, implement an organizational strategy, utilize evidence proficiently, and clarify their syntax and diction. We currently operate in two locations: Rome Hall, Suite 550 on the Foggy Bottom Campus (Monday through Thursday from 9:00 AM-8:00 PM, Fridays from 9:00 AM-2:00 PM, and Sundays from 7:00 PM-10:00 PM) and Eckles Library on the Mt. Vernon Campus (Sundays from 7:00-10:00) PM.

Making an Appointment:
To schedule an appointment with one of our tutors, please call 202-994-3765. To best serve you, we ask that you bring the following to your appointment: your assignment sheet, any work you have done on the paper, teacher or peer comments if applicable, any resources you have readily available, and anything else with which you need help.

What a session looks like:
Our normal sessions run for 50 minutes, though we do have 25-minute appointments available upon request. When you arrive at the Writing Center, you will check in with the receptionist at the front desk, and your tutor will greet you. After that, the two of you will sit down at one of our workstations and work collaboratively to determine goals for the session. Tutors can help you brainstorm, outline, come up with theses and topic sentences, and assist you with a draft of your paper. We ask that students read their papers aloud because we have found that the most effective way for students to evaluate their own writing is by actually hearing what they have written. As you move through the paper, your tutor will ask questions and offer advice to help you improve your paper and your skills as a writer.

Our Policies:

• We are unable to tutor take-home exams without the permission of a professor. If you would like to bring a take-home exam into the Writing Center, please have your professor write a quick note granting permission or the professor can send us an e-mail at gwriter@gwu.edu.
• Tutors may proofread or line-edit papers only in conjunction with reading the paper out loud.
• Students are permitted to have three appointments per week. This number is reduced to two appointments per week during exam periods.
• Tutors are not responsible for grades received on clients' assignments.
• If a student is more than fifteen minutes late for a scheduled appointment, we reserve the right to give the appointment away to another student.
• For group projects, only the sections written by students present at the appointment can be examined. We cannot look at sections written by students who do not attend the sessions.