Frequently Asked Questions about the Writing Center

  • What does the Writing Center do for students?
  • What is an online consultation by e-mail?
  • What is an online consultation by chat?
  • What if I just have a quick question?
  • Is there a charge for using the Writing Center?
  • What kinds of writing can the Writing Center help with?
  • Will the Writing Center edit my paper for me?
  • My professor wants proof that I came to the Writing Center. How can I get that?

During a writing consultation, we can help you with any type of writing assignment, for any course, at any stage of the writing process. Use our online schedule http://pittstate.mywconline.com to make an appointment for a consultation by chat or email.

We can help with finding, using, and citing sources; planning and getting started on a writing assignment; checking to make sure you’ve followed the instructions; proofreading for final submission; and document formatting using Microsoft Word.

Our schedule fills up quickly, so plan ahead.

An online consultation by e-mail is a chance for you to get personalized feedback on your writing at a time that works for you.  To use this service, go to the online appointment schedule at http://pittstate.mywconline.com, select any available appointment, and choose “Yes. Schedule Online by email appointment.” Use the appointment reservation form to tell us what kind of help you need, what you want us to pay attention to in reading your paper, and what special questions or concerns you would like us to address. Please also upload the instructions for the assignment, if you have them. Then attach your paper to the appointment, and you’re done. A consultant will respond to the issues you’ve identified, and you will have the consultant’s feedback within 60 minutes of the scheduled appointment time.

 For best results, please send your draft in MS Word (.docx) format so that we can put comments directly on your draft. We can work with a .pdf if that’s your only option, but we can give you more targeted feedback using a Word document.

An online consultation by chat is a real-time conversation with a Writing Center consultant using either Zoom or the Writing Center’s private chat feature. During a chat consultation, clients can share documents with the consultant, ask questions and get feedback about their draft, and even work collaboratively on revision. Chat appointments can be made using the Writing Center’s online scheduling system http://pittstate.mywconline.com by selecting “Yes. Schedule Online by chat appointment” in the appointment reservation form.
For genuinely quick questions, we’re happy to help by phone (620-235-4694) or by chat via the chat tool on our website https://www.pittstate.edu/office/writing-center/. You can also email questions to us at writingcenter@pittstate.edu.
No. The Writing Center @ PSU provides all services free of charge to students, staff, and faculty.
We can help you with any academic or workplace writing, including writing assignments for PSU courses, graduate school applications, resumes and cover letters, reports, grant proposals, and writing for publication. We can also work with creative writing for a PSU creative writing course and poetry or short stories for submission to a magazine or literary journal.
Our goal is to help you address the issues that brought you to the Writing Center, whatever they are, so if editing is what you need, then editing is what we do. But we do also want to help you become more proficient in working with your own writing, including editing, so we will try to use the opportunity to teach you some things about editing that you can use for the future.

If you have made an appointment using our online scheduling system, you just need to tell us in the appointment reservation form that you need proof of your visit, give us your instructor’s email address, and we’ll send it. If you work with us in a different format (by phone or using the chat tool on our website, for example), you’ll need to remember to tell us that you need proof of visit and spend a couple of extra minutes in the chat or on the phone while we collect that information from you.