Writing Center

A student may drop in or call to make a 30-minute, one-on-one appointment with an instructor. Making an appointment in advance ensures that an instructor will be available.

The center is for all students who are working on any writing assignment, in any stage of the writing process.

The Writing Center is located in Bowman Library. To make an appointment,
please stop by the center or contact us at writingcenter@menlo.edu or 650.543.3849.

Policies

The Writing Center offers Menlo College students one-on-one interactive consultations designed to improve their writing skills. Consultations may focus on grammar, organization, style, and/or structure. Each session is tailored to the individual student's concerns. However, a student should not necessarily expect to get through an entire paper in one session; consultants will try to focus each session on one or two major concerns.

Consultants do not fix papers for students.

Though consultants are happy to focus on grammar and revision, the Writing Center is not a proofreading service. Consultants do not "fix" the work of students, but instead teach them how to identify and correct grammatical errors and improve writing style.

Consultants will work only with writers and their texts.

They will not tutor someone who brings in someone else’s writing.

Students are limited to one 30-minute appointment per day.

Consultations are limited to 30 minutes per day because longer session can overwhelm a student. If a student would like more help, he or she is encouraged to sign up for an additional session on another day. The writing consultants are more than happy to meet with any students multiple times before an assignment is completed.

If a student arrives late for an appointment, he or she forfeits the session.

Because there is high demand for help with writing, a student who comes late to a session can expect that the writing consultant will be busy with another student.

Grammar and Writing Exercises

• Dashes
• Diction and Style
• Fragments and Run-ons
• Paragraphing
• Parallel Structure
• Point of View
• Subject Verb Agreement Module
• Thesis Statements
• Verb Tense Shifting

Resources for Writers

• Top Twenty Errors in Undergraduate Writing (Stanford University)
• Grammar Quizzes

Citation Resources

• The Bowman Library Webpage has links to helpful citation resources
• Noodletools allows you to input citation information and will produce the citation format for you
• For help with APA format (most business and psychology classes use this citation style)
• Frequently asked questions for MLA format (most English/humanities classes use this citation style)