There are a variety of services on campus designed to assist students to succeed in their academic studies and achieve their career goals.  These services are free of charge to all registered students.  Choose one service and investigate its merits.  Write a minimum of three pages intriducing the service you have chosen to investigate and recommend (or don't) it to your target audience.

            There are different types of helping organizations existing at California State University, Northridge (CSUN). These services are offered free of charge in order to help students. Each and every organization has a special value in serving the university family to its maximum. The one service that has much importance for CSUN students is the Learning Resources Center (LRC). The LRC is divided into several sections. They are Writing Programs, Subject Area Tutoring, Mathematics, Writing Proficiency Exam (VVPE) prep sessions, ~NTE Workshop, CBEST Workshop, Study Strategies, and Student Computing.
            A sub section of the LRC is the Writing Center, which is located in the Student Services Building (SSB 415). This place is about gaining advantages. Having a place like the Writing Lab offered to students helps them correct their writings with the aid of experienced tutors. Students get added experience in writing and editing because the tutors show them how to reduce their mistakes.
            A student needing help with a writing assignment can find at least three or four tutors working during office hours. They are there to guide students who need help in English writing, especially for classes like 097, 098, and 155 (Writing Program). Tutors working here are students who have appropriate experience. Some are English major and some are not. However, all have excellent grades in English. They are either graduate or under-graduate students. There is a tutor named Angela Arosemena, who has been working at the center for two semesters, joined CSUN as a transfer student; she earned excellent grades in all of her English courses, which she had taken at her first school. Angela is not a unique tutor; all the tutors are qualified to help students improve their writing skills. Normally, to work at this center a tutor is required to have at least a B grade in all English courses. However, on the other hand, it is not compulsory to earn a degree in English or currently be enrolled in an English class to become a tutor. As long as they know English very well, they can start teaching students.
            Students have two different options available if they want to meet with a tutor. They can make an appointment on weekdays from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm. Each student gets only one appointment per week and it is no more than 30 minutes. They can also take a chance and walk over, first come first serve basis. With an appointment or if a student walks in, tutors normally ask the student to describe the topic of the writing assignment before they start reviewing it with the student. They read a student's paper for some time and show him/her the errors in the mechanics that he/she should be aware of After discussing these errors and strategies for avoiding them, the student is given an evaluation form in order to write comments about the tutor, The reason why the CSUN Writing Center does this is to keep its standards of the service high and to give the maximum use of the center to the student by hiring excellent tutors.
            A student can also participate in group tutoring sessions. The center's website mentions that "Tutors and Consultants help writers understand an assignment, generate ideas, rewrite, develop a thesis, analyze audience, organize and develop ideas, revise a draft, improve proofreading and editing skills discover their own writing process (Philosophy and Quick FAQs)." In-group sessions first the tutor normally gives students a chance to discuss their own ideas about the topic they're going to focus on. Later on after getting a clear idea of the topic, the tutor contributes his ideas and opinions to the entire group. In this case, even though the tutor is unable to focus on each and every person, he manages to educate students as a group.
            The Writing Lab also provides convenient access to tutors by asking questions and discussing corrections online, "A Virtual Online Writing Site, where students can hold "real time" conversations with a writing consultant." The student can send the assignment or the paper as an attachment and the corrections will be discussed at the same time via Internet access. It's like chatting with a friend online.
            Because tutors work with individual students for a limited time, they cannot possibly correct each and every mistake. Instead, they try to get students to recognize their own mistakes. They are doing the right thing by encouraging the students to develop their writing skills and to reduce technical mistakes.
Tutors and consultants will not "fix" your errors, but they will help you to identify your strengths and weaknesses, and offer strategies to help you recognize and repair your own technical errors. And they will direct writers toward resource materials for citation, grammar, punctuation... (Philosophy and Quick FAQS).
Tutors encourage students to develop their ideas and show up places where they have gone wrong. They may not correct students' writing mechanics one by one. Normally, they ask the student to refer to several books or web site to find out where he/she has gone wrong. To get the maximum use of this center, the student has to work hard after knowing his/her mistakes. The experience gained by knowing mistakes, depends on the English knowledge of the student.
           The LRC helps students, especially those new to English, recognize the small mistakes that they keep repeating. Becoming an aggressive writer at the University level depends on an individual's ability to improve. This argument can be proven by my own experience. I took a CHS 097 class last semester and I was given three essay assignments to complete. My grammar and other basic language techniques were very poor at that time and my instructor told me to get help from the Writing Lab. First day I found out that this place is just to correct papers and may not help me to improve my language techniques. But they showed me to develop my skills by reading books and newspapers, listening to radio and visiting some quality web sites. Later on I became much more comfortable with words, as well as grammar.  Now I have more confidence in my reading and writing, I think the Writing Lab can help most students, especially those students whose first language is not English.
            It is important for students to take advantage of the Writing Lab while they are enrolled in their Freshman English classes because writing assignments are required in other classes on campus. Neglecting any type of small problem can convert into a big problem. Some students have a great background in English, but unfortunately they are unable to write at the proper university level. When they start to do upper division general education subjects or sometimes their own major subjects they come across various types of difficulties in their writing. These problems occur most of the times with term papers as well as with assigned reports. For example, Ganesh, a computer science major in the COMP 122 class, received a poor grade in his GEOG 340 class. He said, "I tried my level best to do well in my twenty page term paper, but I was given a D grade because the professor said that my writing structure was incorrect." I could not believe it because he speaks great English even though he has an accent. When I asked him whether he went to the Writing Lab when he was enrolled in ENGL 155, he replied "That was the biggest mistake I ever made in my life, not going to a tutoring center; I was too lazy to go to those places when I was asked to correct my essays." This student is a good example of how many students on campus think about LRC. He is also a good example of why visiting the LRC is important. If he went to the Writing Lab when he was a freshman he would have gathered some encouragement from tutors in order to develop his skills. Since he became so lazy to make any attempt to meet them, his mistakes were hidden and no one saw the problems except his Geology professor, But when he got to know his error he was almost late. Hence, students must not think that they are genius in English. They should get the maximum benefits from these types of writing services, since they are free for all university students.
            Students are more aware of the grades as well, while they learn to write good English. During the interview with Arosemena she said, "Students come with papers, some with first draft and some with the second draft and they are concerned about their grades as well as their improvements." Students come to the university to learn; they know their grades are important to their future. In today's environment students need a good Grade Point Average (GPA) to apply for a good paying job or admittance into a graduate program.
            It's not compulsory that instructors encourage students to attend the Writing Lab. Students need to think about their difficulties and get the maximum use out of this center. Too many students don't take advantage of this service. Many students think that they are perfect writers, and they are lazy to visit the LRC to correct their assignments.
            The service the LRC offers expressly exists to help students. Students are encouraged to develop writing techniques by asking the tutors' opinions and ideas about their papers. Tutors are capable of showing mistakes someone has in his/her paper. The LRC's intention is to develop the writing knowledge of the student by editing their assignments. Specially, the LRC is capable of helping students who are poor in English. From this center students get much confidence in their writing techniques. On the other hand the student also has to work hard by him/her selves in order to get the maximum use of the center. Students should remember that the LRC is not there to fix errors; it is there to help students think about their own faults, with the help of experience tutors at the center. Therefore, I think that the LRC is an essential service at CSUN.

Works Cited

Arosemena, Angela. Personal Interview. 09 Oct 2003.
Ganesh, Robin. Personal Interview. 07 Oct 2003.
LRC Writing Programs @ CSUN Services. Philosophy and Quick FAQS.  Update 27 Sep 2003. 12 Oct 2003  <http://www.csun.edu/-hflrc006/>.
Writing Programs. Northridge, CA: CSTN Learning Resource center, 2003.