Aug. 31

I believe community plays several roles in the writing center and can, therefore, influence students in a myriad of ways both outside of the center and within it. Personally, I have actually never taken advantage of the writing center in the two years that I have attended this university, and the only reason I can think of for not doing so was honestly a feeling of embarrassment. I felt almost embarrassed at the idea of walking into the tutoring center and asking a fellow student to review my work. It’s not that I didn’t believe in their abilities as tutors or their credibility, it was just the mere thought of handing my work over to someone who could well be my own age or younger and being “judged” by them because of experiences that I have had outside of the writing center with students my own age. This is a much less reassuring sense of community, but at the time it was my view of the community within the writing center as a whole and it is that view which kept me away from taking advantage of this amazing resource. What I understand now about the center and its effect on writing is that community is essential to writing a relevant piece, particularly because you get to know your audience and what it is that appeals to them about what you’ve written. Without an audience, who will give a damn about what you write? We must be proactive, get to know our audience, our community, and this can easily be done through the peer review process.