“Welcome to the Writing Center! What would you like to work on today?”
Every tutoring session at the George Mason Writing Center begins this way. In 45-minute individual tutoring sessions, tutors and writers work on brainstorming, outlining, discussing the assignment prompt, composing a rough draft, citing sources, and revising for structure, argument, clarity, and grammatical usage and mechanics.
At the Writing Center, we work with your student on any kind of writing: essays and research papers in every discipline, resumes and professional writing, and personal writing. We even coach students on preparing for essay exams and offer our services to all members of the Mason community, from freshmen to graduate students to faculty members and staff.
No matter what topic your student is studying, the Writing Center has a tutor that can work with him or her. Writing Center tutors are a diverse group of Mason students: in programs ranging from Biology to Business to Global Studies. We even have graduate students from Mason’s English MA programs working in the Writing Center.
All tutors are trained to work with multilingual writers and we have three tutors on staff who are ESL specialists. For multilingual writers who are interested, we also offer the ESL opt-in program, which enables students to make recurring appointments with a single tutor so that they have the opportunity for long-term and consistent tutoring to help develop their writing skills.
We offer appointments at three different locations on the Fairfax campus as well as at the Arlington campus. If for some reason your student cannot make it to campus for a face-to-face appointment, we offer video and email tutoring.
During the academic term, the Writing Center is open Monday through Friday and on Sunday afternoons. Mason students can make a face-to-face or online appointment through our website at writingcenter.gmu.edu, or by coming into the Writing Center’s main location in Robinson A 114. We welcome walk-ins whenever tutors are available. Our website also offers many great writing resources including over sixty handouts or quick-guides on various writing skills, genres, and concerns.
If your student is looking for additional assistance with his or her writing, encourage him or her to visit the Writing Center located in Robinson A 114 or reach out to wcenter@gmu.edu with any questions!
Susan Lawrence
Interim Director
The Writing Center