# 10


I tutor two graduate students in marketing, which is not my field of study. I know virtually nothing about marketing. However, this has mattered very little in our tutoring sessions, which have progressed very well in my opinion. My students have mainly needed help with things like organization, clarity, and word choice. These are all things that I, as a writing center tutor, am equipped to assist them with. My background in religious studies has not been completely irrelevant, however. Religious studies methodologies and theories are different than marketing, but the basic research processes and patterns are not completely dissimilar. My students, like me, still need to read many books and articles, collect data, synthesize their data, and write a clear narrative about their data. I have been able to utilize my knowledge about conducting research and writing about research to assist my students with various writing issues. That said, I spent a significant portion of our beginning sessions having both of my students explain their research projects in great detail, sometimes certain aspects multiple times. When my students have more discipline specific questions, I ask them to look at examples of research in their field or to ask their advisor. This has proven effective so far.

Comments

  1. Joseph JalinskyApril 9, 2019 at 10:28 AM

    I agree in that I was surprised to find I was able, to some extent, transfer my writing skills as a scientist to some of the non-science writing assignments that my writing center students are working on. I think I would be more effective tutoring graduate students as, no matter the discipline, the output needs to be coherent and well-organized and that is something as grad students we should be able to help with. I think undergrad assignments are more difficult to tutor as the assignment guidelines can be limited or even arbitrary.

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