Learn to write the right way at the Miller Writing Center

Jakob Geiger, a junior in English and political science, has worked at the Miller Writing Center for a year and a half.

According to Geiger, an employee at the Writing Center sees an average of six student clients a week to discuss writing of all kinds, both academic and nonacademic.

“A lot of the more common mistakes are grammar, which are things we don’t really emphasize in our tutoring practice,” Geiger said. “We focus on the big picture things like, ‘Can you formulate a thesis? Can you organize your paper logically?’”

According to Geiger, once a client learns how to do that, then tutors will begin helping him or her focus on what Geiger calls “the nit-picky things,” such as avoiding gender bias in the writer’s use of pronouns, appropriate placement of commas and diversifying the sentence structure of a paper.

“Our mission at the Writing Center is ‘All students, all writing,’ so every student, no matter what they’re writing, should feel comfortable coming to the Writing Center with whatever they might be working on,” Geiger said. “My boss says this a lot in our training. He says that our goal is to create better writers, not better writing. We’re not focusing just on your one paper. We want to give students the tools that they need to improve their future writing.”

The writing center’s range of help for students doesn’t stop at just papers for class.

The tutors are also trained to help students work on PowerPoint presentations, video projects, resumes, cover letters and more, according to Geiger.

“This year especially, we focused on what’s called ‘multi-modal writing,’ so writing using different forms of media,” Geiger said. “We have e-portfolio training too, so we know how to work with WordPress and Weebly and Wix, so we have a very technologically proficient staff.”

To schedule an appointment with the Miller Writing Center, one can visit the front desk located on the second floor of the Ralph Brown Draughon Library or go to auburn.edu/writingcenter to look at hours of availability and learn more about the tutors available to meet with.

The Miller Writing Center is open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. during the school year at the Ralph Brown Draughon Library. Tutors are also available to meet at several other locations around campus, including the Student Athlete Development Center, the Forestry and Wildlife building, Foy Union Hall and the Library of Architecture, Design, and Construction.

“Every student is able to use any location, so if an appointment is booked at RBD for the time that you’re free then you can make it at one of the other locations,” Geiger said.