UWC consultants help JMU student writers with all types of academic and non-academic writing: course assignments from all JMU disciplines, personal statements, cover letters, scholarship applications, articles for publication, theses and dissertations, creative writing, and other writing projects. We also work with JMU faculty and staff with their academic and non-academic writing projects, and we assist faculty in designing effective assignments and responding to student writing. 

Honor the objectives that writers affirm in their session request forms and/or during sessions. We should address a writer’s request that we focus on later order concerns—"grammar" or "citations"—even if we notice more global opportunities/concerns.

It’s a good idea to mention the possibility of higher order concerns early in the session. If you then notice higher order concerns later in the session, you can try playing the role of an outside reader. After you ask the client about addressing higher order concerns, and after the client passes on this great opportunity, you should focus more specifically on the client's concerns. 

"Seeking academic help is often a way that students can safely name their distress.
Peer educators don't always feel equipped to handle students experiencing distress in a session."
 – Kristen Kelley

A degree of stress is normal. Sometimes, though, the intensity of a UWC session can bring academic or non-academic stressors to the fore. In other cases, UWC visitors might choose to disclose or reveal distress through their speech, writing, or behavior. They may express distress in different ways:

• Freeze: they may shut down during the session (just coming to the UWC may have been a big accomplishment). Despite their best intentions, they may have difficulty focusing or understanding/acting on advice; they may express (or you may sense) paralyzing doubt or indecision about their work or other academic and non-academic concerns; they may express hopelessness and despair.
• Flee: they may talk rapidly or seem restless, tense, or fidgety (often with nervous or quivering legs). They may not register or respond to the reactions of the people around them (starting with you); they may disconnect or withdraw during the session (physically or emotionally); they may talk about not turning the paper in at all, not going to class, or needing to just get home
• Fight: they may express deep frustration (perhaps returning to the same concern repeatedly); they may offer responses that seem out of proportion with the topic at hand; they may argue or become angry (perhaps directing the anger at you, because you are handy and won't bite)

The rapport we work to establish in all of our sessions becomes even more important when writers show signs of distress. Favor "connecting" language over "isolating" language:

• Connecting Language

"This is hard"
"You are not alone in this"
"You came in and we can work on this right now, together"
"This is intense. Let me grab someone who can better help us.”

• Isolating Language

"You should have…"
"Have you…?"
"Why haven’t you…?"
"I can’t imagine waiting this long…"

The "Connecting Language" above offers starting points for strategies for helping writers who disclose or experience distress:

• Tend and Mend
• Listen: a sympathetic ear and a few inviting, open-ended phrases can unlock doors
• Validate the emotions that the writer shares: the situation/concept/effort/assignment is challenging, and you know that others have found/are finding it challenging
• Affirm that it was a good decision to seek help: the writer was right to come to the UWC, and you are ready, willing, and able to assist.
• Repeat: spend time here, resisting the temptation to offer quick advice, however well-meant, reasonable, and good that advice may be

• Help the writer to focus on the work at hand
• Act locally: making tangible headway in one task can make everything else seem more manageable
• Use open-ended language: enable  the writer to talk and in turn to assert a degree of control over the situation with language that invites responses:
• "Tell me about your paper/your concerns"
• "What else could you do here?"
• "What do you think would happen if you moved this/started here?"
• "Is there another way to say this or order this?"
• Be flexible: try switching things up, perhaps volunteering to take notes or to type what the writer says
• Create a plan: an outline, an ordered series of manageable steps, a strategy, or resources to consult

• Use your resources/consider the bigger picture
• Remember your boundaries and your limitations in terms of your role and your time: our job—and our human impulse—is to help, but we shouldn't over-promise or over-function, nor should we feel guilt when we can't make everything better    
• Clear the air: "This isn't productive. I'll take a minute, you take a minute, and we'll try again in a moment."
• Involve/reach out to a fellow consultant (ANY fellow consultant, whether already in another session or not): you're not confessing incompetence, you're not giving up, you're not deferring to authority, and you're not ganging up on the writer; instead, you're trying a new tactic: a fresh set of ears, a reset on the situation, a different dynamic
• Help the writer to identify other campus resources. You're not saying "You need professional help"; rather, you're helping the writer to know about the options: "I know we have offices on campus that can help with any situation." With the writer, you can check out JMU's Campus Resources page (just type "campus resources" into the JMU site's search bar).
• Ask for input from a UWC faculty member: if you're uncomfortable or concerned (for the writer or for yourself), don't ignore the issue and don't wait until after the session

• After the session
• Process what you heard, saw, and did through conversations with your fellow consultants
• The JMU Counseling Center's "Purple Folder" (also available here) offers additional resources for processing and acting on your UWC session
• Share your session report and your impressions with Lucy and Rudy

We should refer writers who ask for help with résumés—particularly résumé strategy and formatting—to the University Career Center on the 3rd floor of the Student Success Center (https://www.jmu.edu/career/).

This said, clients often come to the UWC with a stack of application materials: résumés, cover letters, personal statements, and other application essays. You can certainly look at clients' résumés as you help them to craft these overlapping texts. And if a client brings in a cover letter and then asks for help in editing a résumé or curriculum vitae (CV) for clarity and concision, you can certainly lend your trained consultant eyes. 

• • Crisis Intervention: Infographic with campus, state, and national resources, statistics and risk factors, and a page of sources
  • Microaggressions: Infographic detailing instances and impacts of intentional and unintentional statements and behaviors against individuals with marginalized or oppressed identities
  • Gender Unicorn: Infographic sharing the diversity of gender identities, gender expressions, sex assigned at birth, physical attractions, and emotional attractions
  • Gender Pronouns: Infographic charting the growing number of options for gender pronouns, stressing the importance of asking individuals regarding their preferred pronouns

For more information, contact the JMU Health Center's LGBTQ and Ally Education Program. Chris Ehrhart with the LGBTQ and Ally Program shared the resources above after our February 3, 2017, all-staff meeting on LGBTQIQA+ awareness and consulting.

Some General Education courses feature common assignments that we see year after year in the UWC. We also see clients coming in with similar questions and concerns.

The resources below outline the assignments, the concerns that UWC clients and consultants commonly identify, and tried and tested strategies and questions that UWC consultants have used in the past.

Sample prompts for some of these assignments are available in the UWC's Canvas site under "Common UWC Assignment Prompts."   

In both one-to-one sessions and group sessions, we prefer to work with writers on their own writing. In an ideal session, we help with the writing produced by clients who are physically present for the session. If a client wrote only Section A, we would not work on Sections B and C with that client. However, in some group writing assignments, one or two members are assigned to serve as editors for the whole paper. In these cases, we can help the editors to more effectively edit the paper. 

A useful technique when working with a group of writers is to have everyone read through parts of the paper at the same time. If you know you’re working with a group and want to suggest this option, ask for help in getting the paper up on one of the UWC’s big flat screen monitors.

Writing groups are usually concerned that their different sections read like one cohesive document. As the writers read through sections during a session, they often note and address content and style inconsistencies between sections. Your outside reader responses—"I’m confused about…"—can help them identify connections between topics and add concepts or key word transitions to bring separately written parts together. You can also help writers to notice discrepancies in terminology or information and inconsistencies like capitalization or abbreviations.

Writing groups might look to you for help in resolving their differences regarding grammar, punctuation, and style. Where you can't readily supply answers, you can point them toward resources and can suggest that they consult appropriate discipline-specific models as they make their decisions.

ONLINE group sessions: WCOnline isn't really set up for online group sessions. If a client indicates that other group members would like to participate in the session, you can paste your Zoom or Webex personal room address into the WCOnline chat for the client to share with the rest of the group. You might then suggest that the group use Zoom or Webex's "Share Screen" function to share their draft. Check out the UWC's Online Consulting Roadmap page for more help.

The UWC's big screen digital displays can be useful during group sessions and in socially distanced one-to-one sessions.

This Crestron Air Media Walkthrough document (last updated 9/19/21) offers instructions for sharing your Windows, IPad, and Mac screens on either of the UWC's big screen TVs.

Note that there are several steps and a learning/trial-and-error process involved in the effort to get your device's screen up on one of our UWC digital displays. Plan to test your device against the instructions above before you decide to use one of the screens on short notice.

Fulbright Scholarship consulting: here's the most recent "Tips for Consulting on Fulbright Statement Applications" PowerPoint (last updated 9/23/2020).

Gilman Scholarship consulting: here's the most recent "Gilman Essay Review Guide" document (last updated 9/23/20).

Here's a resource focusing on the Goldwater Fellowship (last updated 10/8/21)

Finally, here's the link to the Honors College's Hillcrest Scholarship.

JMU's ROTC writers should be familiar with the "Writing in the Army Style"  PowerPoint (page 5 offers an overview of key writing concerns). This much longer "Student Readings" file includes very specific Army Regulations for writing and formatting documents, models for reports and correspondence, and Federal Plain Language Guidelines (an extended style guide).

• JMU Libraries Homepage
  • Quick Search: this search engine searches through most of the databases JMU Libraries own or subscribe to. Conduct your search by typing your search terms into the text box at the top of the library home page.
  • Complete List of Databases
  • Research Guides
  • JMU Liaison Librarians: A liaison librarian is assigned to each academic program to ensure that library services and collections meet the needs of the students and faculty. Use this link to help JMU writers schedule an appointment with a liaison librarian.
• Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
  • What is a Peer-Reviewed/Refereed Journal Article?: a quick, useful description of the academic journal peer-review process.
  • Finding Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles: check this box, and then keep narrowing down. Also available here.
  • What a Peer-Reviewed Journal Article Search Result Looks Like: identifies key elements that distinguish academic journals from other search results. Also available here. 
• Reasons to Use the JMU Libraries' Databases and Book Collections
  • Scholarly articles or books
    • Scholarly articles are peer-reviewed by experts in the specific field.
    • Books that are scholarly in nature have been vetted by professional editors and are extensively sourced and footnoted.
    • Not all books are created equal: learn about the credentials of the book’s author(s) and publishers. (See the “Evaluating Sources” link below.)
  • (as opposed to) Google
    • Google is geared toward sites that sell products; that is primarily how Google makes money ... through its search engine.
    • Amateur, unverified, or otherwise un-scholarly resources often appear near among the top hits in a Google search.
    (and as opposed to) Wikipedia
    • Wikipedia is a user content-created platform.
    • It is a reference source, and is meant to be introductory, not analytical, in nature.
    • Wikipedia pages can be modified by anybody with an account, rendering them unstable and potentially unreliable.
• Search Tips: tips on identifying different search terms (keywords) to help find relevant sources as well as how to use Boolean operators.
• Evaluating Sources: not all sources are created equal, and this link offers help in evaluating whether a source is adequate for the research paper or project a client is working on. You might also point clients toward the "Evaluating Online Resources" page in the UWC's "Writing Guides and Handouts" site.
• JMU Libraries Citing Sources home: a one-stop shop for JMU Libraries' APA, Chicago/Turabian, MLA, and discipline-specific citation guides, as well as citation tools (RefWorks, Zotero, and Mendeley).

Need a refresher on online consulting. Never consulted online before? Start here: The UWC Online Consulting Roadmap.

Clients may sign up for a session just before or even just after each 30-minute block begins. Remember to refresh your WCOnline screen frequently.

________  

If your scheduled session ends early or if you don't have a scheduled session, be prepared to help clients who walk in to the UWC. If you aren't working with a client, sit near the UWC walk-in table—the table visible from the front desk, just to the right on the main floor—and face the front door so that you can see new arrivers.

Greet new arrivers warmly. If they need writing help, ask whether they have registered with the UWC in WC Online. You should tell all walk-in visitors where you are in your shift, where you are in your current session, whether anyone else is waiting, and what their chances are of working with a consultant this hour. If prospects look bleak, suggest that they try to reserve an appointment through the UWC scheduler.

With the option for 30-minute sessions, clients may schedule two non-consecutive sessions each day for as many as 120 total minutes. For the time being, we've done away with using WCOnline to impose a limit on sessions per week, but let Lucy and Rudy know if a client begins monopolizing you or the UWC.

______  

Students may make up to two appointments for a single day using WC Online.

WC Online is set to prevent students from scheduling two sessions in a row, and you shouldn't use your WC Online powers to circumvent this policy. We want to avoid cognitive overload for both writers and consultants, and we want to foster learning, rather than dependency. Ideally, the writer will take an hour or more between sessions to process the consultation, to apply the learning, or to substantially revise his/her work. 

Reasons for two sessions in a single day

Best practices (in all cases, but especially here)

If you are working in a face-to face session, the UWC's green "proof-of-visit" slips that some professors ask for are available at our front desk.

• Instead of worrying whether a client "deserves" a green slip based on investment or engagement, simply register on the slip how long the session lasted.
• Use a pen when you fill out the form and then circle/initial the length of the session.

If you are working in an online session, you have a couple of options:

• In WCOnline, you can type a sentence like this into the chat: “I certify that Jeff Smith participated in a 40-minute UWC consultation on November 14, 2021.” Your client can then take a screenshot (Mac - shift+command+4) or print their screen (PC - PrtScn). You can use the same approach if you're working in Zoom or Webex with a single client or a group of clients.
• If your client indicates reservations regarding this option (e.g., they have trouble with the technology or want more official proof), you can promise to supply the required proof in an email. If you don't want to write directly to the professor, you can opt to send an email to Lucy or Rudy attesting to the participants, the date and time of the session, and its duration (e.g. "Jeff Smith and Alice Jones participated with UWC Consultant Jenna Adams in a 30-minute online UWC consultation on September 24, 2021"). Remember to include all participating clients' email addresses in your email to Lucy or Rudy. They will then write to the professor.

Note that clients who seem focused principally on securing their face-to-face or online "proof-of-visit" green slip might benefit from knowing a bit more about what we do and what we offer in the UWC:

• • You can remind clients about our UWC mission, vision, and values. You can even consult the Mission, Vision, and Values page on the UWC website.
  • If they insist on focusing on surface issues like punctuation or formatting, that is their right. However, you can note that you still need to understand the purpose, audience, and context for this piece of writing if you are going to give them effective advice.
  • Suggest using the prompt as a way to gauge the paper's content, organization, and other choices. If nothing else, students want to please the professor and get a good grade. Prompts and rubrics can allow you to address the most pressing issues of the paper.

The UWC is NOT a study space. Students who do not have a UWC appointment or who are not seeking writing help cannot use the UWC space. Even if we are not busy, please inform students looking to set up camp that the UWC is a private consulting space reserved at all times for UWC clients, consultants, and Learning Centers staff. You can point out the front booths as an alternative. If students argue or wish to complain, please inform a UWC faculty member. If no UWC faculty member is present, speak with Adrienne, Joan, or Laura.  

If you complete a consultation with a client and the client would like to stay in the UWC to revise, that is totally fine. If a client shows up early to finish drafting before a session, that is also fine.

As a benefit of employment, UWC consultants are free to use the UWC space for quiet study whenever it is open. 

Final Papers and Take-home exams 

UWC policy is that we are not the Honor Police. It is up to clients to determine whether they are able to receive help. It's best for clients to check with their professors before coming, but we will not turn them away unless the prompt explicitly states, "You can't receive any help on this paper." We recommend that consultants ask the following questions at the beginning of these sessions: 

"Is this a final paper/take-home exam for your class?" (or, if the session request form/prompt indicates that this is the case, "I notice that this is a final paper for your class.") "Are you allowed to receive help on this paper? Did your professor say so?" 

"Not sure? Okay. We can still work together, but we will have to stick to basic clarity and organization." 

In sum, the client might not know, but we have covered our responsibility by asking and by affirming. You are not responsible for a client's lapse in judgement. In these sessions, be extra mindful about not supplying ideas or any type of content. Focusing on clarity and organization is always a safe route.  

Plagiarism 

We are also not the Plagiarism Police. However, we are allies to our clients, so we need to make them aware of writing choices that might get them into trouble. Here are a few situations that might arise.  

Paper writing service/ghost writer 

For the most part, we don't see students who are buying papers or having someone else write the entire paper. But it has happened. You might recognize this issue if a student seems particularly clueless about the content of the paper, has no idea what words in the paper mean (advanced or technical vocabulary), or has strange lapses/elevations in style or vocabulary level. Please do not accuse a student. A professional and tactful response might be to simply report what you are noticing: 

Consultant: "I'm noticing that the style and vocabulary changes abruptly right here and here in your paper. I'm wondering why that happens. Can you tell me about your writing process?" 

Client: "Well, um, I got some help on this paper."  

Consultant: "You should be really careful about that. That's probably considered plagiarism. I wouldn't want you to lose points or even fail a paper." 

Citation confusion 

Most "plagiarism" is probably unintentional, a problem that results from one or more of the following situations: 

We prefer to address these as learning issues, not law-breaking: 

Consultant: "I'm noticing that the style/language changes in this sentence. Is this language in the source?" 

Client: "Maybe." 

Consultant: "If it is, you'll want to be sure to avoid borrowing language from the source without quoting. In either case, you'll need an in-text citation and a listing in your references/works cited section." 

Client: "Oh. I didn't realize we had to be that careful. The article was really tough to understand." 

Consultant: "Well, we can talk about some critical reading strategies and ways to help you digest the material well enough to use your own words."

If an emergency means you will not be able to make your consulting shift on short notice, work to address the situation:

• Your first step is to call the UWC: Lucy's phone number is 540-568-3450; Rudy's number is 540-568-2986; Joan's number and the Learning Centers front desk number is 540-568-2932; Lucas's phone number is 540-568-1683.
• If no one answers the phone—it's a Sunday, or everyone is otherwise away from their offices—send an urgent email to Rudy, cc-ing Lucy (barretrl @jmu.edu and malenklb@jmu.edu) for help.

If these first options don't resolve the concern and if your shift begins soon, there are increasingly desperate options:

• If no one has reserved your time, click on the time in WCOnline and scroll down to the "Administrative Options" at the bottom of the session request form. Use the placeholder option there to block out the session (you're basically scheduling a session with yourself).
• If someone has reserved your time and another consultant is available, click on the time in WCOnline and scroll down to click on "Edit Appointment." Scroll down in the new window to the "Administrative Options" box and click on "Move Appt." Move the appointment to the open consultant, and then email the consultant (you can find his/her/their email in one of our past all-staff emails).
• If someone has reserved your time and no other consultant is available, click on the time, click on the client's name at the top of the session request form to get their email address, and then cancel the session. You should then immediately email the client to apologize and to suggest alternatives. You should also email the other consultants on shift.

• • If JMU is closed or delayed, the University Writing Center is also closed or delayed. 
  • If JMU is not closed but bad weather is creating unsafe conditions for you to get to your shift, we can cancel your hours. Just email (and perhaps text) Lucy, Rudy, and Joan as early as possible.
  • If you are working a UWC shift, bad weather is upon us, and you feel that you need to leave before the end of your shift in order to get home safely, you may do so (even if JMU has been slow to officially close). Just talk to or email/text Lucy, Rudy, and Joan so that we can block off the schedule and/or inform clients.

Use this Qualtrics UWC Session Observation Form to file your session observations. Remember to review your responses before you click on the last set of >>.

After you click on that last set of >>, you'll be prompted to print or download a .pdf file of the form you just completed. It's a good idea to do so, for a couple of reasons. First, you'll have a record of your work. Second, session observations should be formative, useful learning opportunities for both parties, and you might share the file with the consultant you observed.

After you've printed and/or downloaded the .pdf, remember to finish your observation by hitting the submit button. We think Qualtrics registers forms without this last step, but advise against taunting the machine.

Here's a printer-friendly 2-page version of the observation form for use before and during your session observations.