Writing Center FAQs

All Pitzer students are eligible—and encouraged—to use the Writing Center. Faculty, staff, and recent alumni may also use the center. Claremont College students enrolled in Pitzer courses are welcome to book appointments for assignments in those courses.

The Writing Center is a place to talk about your writing. We listen to your goals for a particular assignment and help you identify strategies to meet them.

Expert writers ask for feedback from peers during the writing process. The Writing Center creates a space for doing the same. When you visit the Writing Center, you share and refine your ideas with a community of readers. Perhaps you’ll leave the session with some new ideas–or a better, more interesting question to ask. We’re here to listen and are eager to read your work at any stage of its development. If you’re having trouble getting started or sustaining your momentum, we can work with you on that, too.

Writing needn’t be a solitary activity. In fact, scholars describe writing as a social and contextual act. In our everyday lives, we constantly do things with words. We use language to accomplish everyday tasks and to discover and create new meanings for ourselves and others. That’s why writing can assume so many different voices and forms. What do you want to accomplish with a particular piece of writing and what are its parameters? Who do imagine your audience to be and how can you best reach them? What are the range of choices available to you as you revise?  Tell us your questions about your writing, and we’ll roll up our sleeves and help you arrive at answers.

You’ll meet for 50-minutes with a Writing Center Fellow. If you don’t have a draft, simply bring the assignment prompt and your sources and the Fellow will work with you to get started.  If you have a draft, please bring two hard copies (one for you and one for the Fellow). We recommend booking a two-hour appointment if your essay is longer than 12 pages. Two-hour appointments are particularly popular with senior thesis writers.

The Writing Center Fellow is likely to open the conference with questions about your project: “What are you working on?”, “Where are you in the writing process?”, and “What would you like to focus on in our conversation?” We ask questions because we believe good consultations—like good conversations—are collaborative and the product of active listening. We also need this context so we can help you meet your goals.

Visiting the Writing Center early and often during the writing process helps many writers make progress on a draft. In order to balance our goal of meeting different writing needs, while also making appointments accessible to as many students who need them as possible, we do place limits on the number of appointments that can be booked. Students may book up to two appointments per day and up to three appointments per week. We find this approach helps ensure writers have sufficient time between meetings to incorporate feedback into their revisions. If you need more appointments, please reach out to writing@istanbulbuklet.com.

We hope to see you in the Writing Center soon!