Oct. 13, 2023

Writing Center offers same educational resources in new location

By Kayla Holman, communication assistant

Northwest Missouri State University’s Writing Center provides students with writing lessons beyond their academic courses.

The Writing Center, which moved this fall to a new location on the first floor of B.D. Owens Library, offers students free individualized tutoring for writing. The Writing Center places its focus not only on helping students with their writing but teaching strategies to improve reading and verbal language skills, too.

“We can help with any piece of written work at the University, whether it’s brainstorming or prewriting all the way to the polished final copy,” Stancy Bond, Northwest’s Writing Center coordinator and a senior instructor of English, said.

Staffed by graduate and undergraduate tutors in collaboration with the Department of Language, Literature and Writing, the Writing Center welcomes all majors.

Obioma Nwuba, a junior early childhood education major from Anambra, Nigeria, is one of the Writing Center’s undergraduate tutors. 

“We help all kinds of students,” Nwuba said. “We try to focus on different genres and different fields, so we have tutors that are history majors, and we also have those in the sciences as well.”

Along with assisting in paper writing, the Writing Center helps international students with perfecting their English speaking through open-book readings and conversation.

“I am able to take what I know and be able to help other students become better writers,” Nwuba said. “Just being able to do that in itself is fulfilling.”

Oluwatosin Popoola, a freshman biomedical sciences major from Lagos, Nigeria, visited the Writing Center to seek help with his sociology class.

“Students should make use of the Writing Center because it is a free resource to improve skills,” Popoola said. “I perfected the use of APA format through tutoring and my objectives for the course were overall passed.”

Open Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., the Writing Center accepts scheduled appointments and walk-ins.

“Our goal at the Writing Center is to make better writers,” Bond said. “We want to work on writing skills as a whole instead of just focusing on getting you an A on a paper.”

For additional information about the Writing Center, visit www.nwmissouri.eu/llw/writingcenter/.