My Visit To The Writing Center

After the location of the writing center had changed, I did not go there, for I had no time to go (maybe not). However thanks to Lit&Perf class, I made one step into the amazing world of  writing. Last year, the writing center was just the room in the library that had "writing center" sticker on the glass wall and it only had one teacher per period. Sometimes it was even not open when the teacher was busy on that day. In contrast this year, it actually is a pretty big office that has a few rooms. Ms. Swift is very dedicated boss (I guess), and there was no one when I visited but I think usually there is one student writing fellow sitting down. My experience this time was pretty good and I think I need to go there one more time to get it done fully.

Revision with Ms. Swift was pretty much about technical problems. She made me read my paper out loud to see if it sounds weird. Interestingly, when I read it out, I could see problems that I could not see while I was writing. I fixed those problems by myself, but for some subtle problems that required more insightful English skill, she directly suggested me to fix it. She also advised me about my first body paragraph. She said if you are trying to show your staging was funny and the way I made it funny, your description should be very vivid and FUNNY. Then she showed some jokes from magazine on her cork board, and brought the magazines to show me what joke makes people laugh and what factor makes funny situation. Unfortunately, I did not think the description of first body paragraph, which is about the dance club adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, was funny. I had to add more evidence to make the description more imaginable and hilarious. Also she wanted me to be more specific about the musics. For example, I used two contrasting musics in terms of the atmospheres and I just described them on my paper using some adjectives, but she said I could write the actual song name on the paper to be more specific and cite them at the end of the paper. Nevertheless, I went over only the first and second body paragraph with her so I have to go over with her again. I do not think I did enough.

The writing center was very helpful to see my hair-spliting problems that I could not see, so in the future, I will definitely use the writing center more frequently especially when I have problems with my grammar, and when I am unsure about the structure of writing. Also because I get to read out my paper in front of native speaker and get to realize my mistakes or problems, I think I can improve my speaking skill as well as self-revising skill. I am still working hard on my draft, and I will keep working on until I hear the writing center says "Did you plagiarize? It is flawless!".