After greetings and introductions, your tutor will ask you about your paper and about the specifics of the assignment. This is a great time to explain what you want help with, or where you are having difficulty. If you don’t have a draft yet, you and your tutor might work on choosing an appropriate topic or coming up with some main ideas. If you do have a draft, the tutor will ask you to read your paper out loud to give you both a chance to hear the paper’s “voice”. Next, the two of you will discuss which parts of the paper you found effective and which you think might need work. Your tutor will then address your concerns and offer advice on how to improve the paper. If your paper is in its early stages, you might find yourselves working on its thesis, organization, development, or a variety of other issues. If it is in its final revision, sentence-level concerns such as style or grammar can be addressed.

At the end of the session, your tutor will encourage you to come back if you feel the paper needs more work, or if you want to bring in the next draft. We hope you make the LRC a regular stop for all your papers!