Getting To the Point

I think it is hard to tutor any paper! Well, I suppose one paper could prove to be more challenging than another. But, I still have never tutored another paper. This last summer as I was taking English 2010, I came to the writing center to get my persuasion paper tutored. I was quite surprised to find that my tutor really did not see much to change about it. Nevertheless, the points she did have were excellent. She almost did not say anything about grammar, but she helped me to see some other alternatives for sentence placement and a more consistent writing style.
Based on my observation, I do not know if it was more difficult to evaluate my paper, but I could see that my tutor was still able to find something to tell me. I think that it would be more difficult for me to tutor a well-written paper because my eyes are not as well-trained as they will one day be. The tutor I met over the summer had obviously had experience enough to be able to brainstorm new ideas with me rather than just saying, “Good job! I can't think of anything else you could do.” Even though nothing in my paper changed dramatically, I left my session with some wonderful new options that I had not previously thought of.
A paper that is not so well-written has many obvious errors that are quickly caught. In this case, I think that it may be easier to see immediate ways to help, but it seems that finding those not so obvious issues would be more difficult whether the paper is “pretty good” or “pretty bad.” I like the methods that we have been learning in class: we brainstorm, we list, and then we negotiate what we think are the most important issues to address. I think it is a good approach to take for any paper. However, it sure does take some time to learn how to be quick at getting to the point.
Overall, I think that the most challenging part about tutoring any paper is finding the most important points to be addressed. If the paper is a poor one you may start with thesis and organization. If it is a good one you might start with rewording sentences and finding alternatives that are just as good as what is already written, or better. Either way, it takes trained eyes to notice those points; that is the most important part about the tutoring session. Now that I think about it, since I have had a chance to be in English 3840 and I have been learning so much about the art of tutoring, I am a little more nervous than I was the first week of class. I know that I will soon be developing a better opinion of what is hard and what is easy.