WRITING AND LIBRARY RESEARCH PEER TUTORS

Guidelines for UCI Student Housing Writing and Library Research Peer Tutors

Tutors Will

•  Create and encourage dialogue

•  Ask open-ended questions

•  Help students identify and evaluate resources

•  Address ideas first, organization second, and sentence-level concerns last

•  Suggest activities or exercises to improve the students' writing

•  Encourage students to take advantage of faculty and TA office hours, "Ask a Librarian," LARC, and other campus resources

•  Comment on clarity and logic of textual analysis

•  Encourage students to take authority in their own writing

•  Respect the students' privacy at all times

•  Challenge students to think for themselves

•  Build students' confidence to actively participate in their own education

Tutors Will Not

•  Monopolize conversation

•  Ask limited or ineffective questions

•  Do students' research or evaluate sources for them

•  Write on student papers or type information into students' computer files

•  Fix student errors in grammar or punctuation

•  Lead students to believe that the tutors are the only resource students have to work on writing and research skills

•  Offer opinions on students' interpretations of the text.

•  Agree with students who say they will never be able to write well

•  Discuss the students or their concerns in public

•  Offer an opinion about the grade, even when asked

•  Allow students to become dependent on them