Frequently asked questions

Writers improve most through constructive feedback combined with an opportunity to discuss their ideas with someone else. That’s what the Writing Center is here for! We work with all forms of writing—including research, design and presentation—and with all majors, disciplines and fields of study. Writing Assistants will work with you to tailor feedback to the specific prompts and assignments you bring to the Center. You will leave with feedback you can be apply directly to the paper or project you are working on, as well as feedback you can apply to future writing. Anyone, at any stage of the writing process, should make an appointment at the LWC.

The LWC does not provide copyediting services. If you would like feedback about your formatting, citations, or punctuation, please schedule a General Appointment for one of our in person locations or online and discuss techniques and tricks to improve your skills!

If you have been referred to the LWC, congratulations! You’re not in trouble. It means a professor or advisor has identified you as someone with great writing potential who could be helped by the LWC. You are joining the other 3,000+ NAU students who have used our free services. Please start by making an appointment online.

We may suggest new skills and techniques to improve your writing. LWC tutors provide tailored feedback on topics like organization, document design and structure, synthesis, and incorporation of research. The more that you come to the LWC, the more confident you will feel about your writing assignments. We look forward to working with you!

English100 is a 1-credit course designed to assist students with writing related to their course work. Students enrolled in English 100 meet once a week for an hour with a Writing Assistant. During an English 100 appointment, students work with Writing Assistants to outline papers, find information, organize ideas, write topic sentences and transitions, discuss feedback, and design plans to improve grammar and punctuation.

English 100 requires an hour of writing outside of the appointment each week. This writing will usually be related to projects and papers from other classes. This writing may involve revising an assignment based on feedback from the Writing Assistant, or it may involve doing an activity on grammar and punctuation, brainstorming, outlining, research, or organization.

Non-ENG100 students may make up to two appointments per day with any one Writing Assistant. Upon completing scheduled appointments, students are welcome to schedule additional appointments. However, the LWC cannot guarantee recurring appointments with the same Writing Assistant. We encourage students to work with a variety of Writing Assistants, as each offers a different perspective and tutoring approach.

We are not primarily a copyediting service, and our feedback typically focuses on more important concepts than grammar and punctuation. Writing Assistants will give you some sentence-level, final editing suggestions, however most of their feedback will be focused on the document or project as a whole. In other words, bring your paper to us but come early enough to have time to implement content-related feedback to improve your writing as a whole.

While we prefer students to work with Writing Assistants for their own writing benefit, professors often offer extra credit for working with the LWC. The LWC will not provide any confirmation for a student attending a writing appointment. Instead, we encourage professors to have students write up a short reflection about the appointment that includes the type of support sought by the student, conversation topics during the appointment, and how the feedback was or will be applied. In addition, professors may request a copy or photo of the tutor’s “Student Exit Survey” completed at the end of appointments.

Writing improves the most when feedback is collaborative and exchanged in person. However, upper-division undergraduate or graduate students may submit their assignment or paper to our asynchronous Review-and-Return schedule if they have specific feedback requests.

Yes, make an appointment, but please come knowing that you will receive suggestions that go beyond sentence-level grammar issues. You can expect our Writing Assistants to point out two or three grammar themes for you to work on, and then focus the rest of their feedback on larger concepts such as organization, synthesis, and incorporation of research.