SUU's Graduate Writing Center: Your Partner in Grad School Success
Posted: August 28, 2025 | Author: Jacob Carr | Read Time: 5 minutes
Have you ever found yourself staring at an essay draft thinking, “I need help! But I don’t even know what I need help with”? Writing is challenging, whether you just graduated from college or you’ve been out of school for decades, especially with the added pressure of transitioning into graduate school. Course assignments and research projects are demanding, and the balance between work, family life, and rest can be hard to find. Luckily, the Graduate Writing Center (GWC) is here to help you with all your writing needs throughout your time at SUU!
What is a writing consultant?
The GWC at SUU is a 100% remote center, offering several free online resources to the SUU Graduate School community. In the GWC, SUU graduate students and faculty can meet with writing consultants to receive help with all kinds of academic writing — papers for class, theses, capstones, application materials, grant and conference proposals, and more. Our consultants have familiarity with a wide range of academic disciplines and writing styles and are ready to help you meet your writing goals.
It is important to remember that the GWC is not just for people who are struggling with their academic writing. Every writer needs a reader, regardless of skill, experience, or confidence. No matter your starting point, we will offer individualized, constructive feedback to help you develop your skills and achieve success.
“The GWC is so much more than just a place for grammar checks,” said a frequent visitor to the GWC.
“They truly help with the overall structure of papers, and they were excellent at guiding me when I felt lost. I often tend to get carried away by my thoughts and diverge from the main topic of an assignment, and the consultants consistently helped me refocus.”
When you visit the GWC, you can be confident that no one will tell you what they think you should say, but instead will help guide you to most effectively express what you want to say. The goal of the GWC is to offer advice that can help you improve your writing - even after your appointment is over.
“I brought in a draft of my final paper,” recalled one grad student. “Although I had spent a long time writing it, after receiving feedback from the GWC, I ended up rewriting almost everything. Surprisingly, it allowed me to write even faster, and the resulting paper was far more satisfying.”
While you usually won’t have to start from scratch, the tools you gain in the GWC will help make writing your next paper a little easier each time.
Appointment types
Our goal in the GWC is to meet the needs of SUU graduate students in the mode and timeframe that works for you. To achieve this, we offer both synchronous Zoom sessions and asynchronous written feedback sessions. Sessions are offered Monday through Saturday throughout the day, and you can always send us an email if you have questions about the schedule. Whether you are fitting us in before work, during your lunch break, or after your kids have gone to bed, we’re here to help! To schedule an appointment, you just need to register for an account with WCONLINE to gain access to the schedule.
Zoom Appointments
Zoom appointments closely resemble traditional one-on-one tutoring. You can schedule a time to meet with a writing consultant and have 50 minutes with them to work on your writing projects.
Zoom appointments can be helpful when you are in the early stages of drafting because a consultant can help you brainstorm and talk through your ideas. They can also be particularly helpful if you are revisiting a piece of writing after receiving feedback from your professor or advisor. We can help you understand the feedback and make a plan for addressing it in your next draft.
Written Feedback Appointments
If you are unable to meet with us via Zoom, we also offer asynchronous written feedback sessions. For these sessions, please share your paper with us in advance and let us know what kind of feedback you’re looking for. At the time of your scheduled appointment, a consultant will read through your paper and leave comments. Their feedback will focus on the concerns you include in your booking form, so please provide as much detail as possible; the more you tell us, the better we can assist you.
Written feedback sessions can be helpful once you’ve started drafting your paper and are ready for an outside reader. Often, after we’ve been thinking about a topic for a while, we need a fresh perspective to let us know if our writing is clear, if there are gaps in our reasoning, or if there are remaining questions that we can answer moving forward. It’s important to remember that we aren’t an editing service, so we'll never make changes to your paper for you, but written feedback sessions can be extremely helpful for proofreading-related concerns like grammar, spelling, formatting, and citation expectations. We can help you keep track of all the rules of academic writing, both old and new, so you don’t have to stress about meeting expectations. We’ll also provide links to any resources that we think would be useful for you as you go back through your paper to revise.
The Takeaway
One SUU Master’s student shared that the GWC helped them understand guidelines that had changed since they were an undergraduate student: “Without the GWC, I would have never earned my Master's Degree. I haven't written a paper since 1995, and needless to say, the rules and especially citations have definitely changed since then.”
Whether you are just beginning your experience as a graduate student at SUU or you are in the home stretch, we look forward to meeting with you! Book an appointment today!
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