Procedures for Using the Tutoring Program

NEW: Effective fall 2007, all writing tutors will be required to upload every document they review to Turnitin.com, the plagiarism detection and prevention website for which MSU recently purchased a site license. Thus, those using the tutoring service should be prepared to provide electronic copies of their documents in Word or PDF form.

Starting spring 2006, all students working with Shackouls TCP Writing Tutors must sign our Writing Tutor Agreement and complete a Tutoring Program Appointment/Referral Form (available for download below). The Agreement form explains what tutors will and will not do during tutoring sessions; the Appointment/Referral (A/R) form documents individual tutoring sessions and establishes which writing/speaking areas tutor and student should discuss during the session. Along with the A/R form itself, students will now be required to meet with a tutor for a minimum of 15 minutes to discuss their writing/document; this means that students can no longer simply drop off and pick up a document, since such a haphazard process is ineffective at helping students improve their writing ability. (Faculty may also use the A/R form to refer particularly needy students for tutoring, although such referrals are not required.) Tutors will meet with students in appointments made on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Information on Tutoring Priorities and Deadlines 

Although we encourage every engineering student and faculty member to use the TCP's tutoring services, writing tutors must observe certain priorities in their work. These priorities are as follows:

• FIRST PRIORITY: Undergraduate-student coursework
• SECOND PRIORITY: Graduate-student coursework
• THIRD PRIORITY: Thesis and dissertation review
• FOURTH PRIORITY: Other appropriate departmental writing-related work, including regular reviews of graduate TAs' grading, brief presentations or workshops in engineering classes, and so on

In practice, these priorities mean that tutors will complete all work in category 1 before starting any work in categories 2-4 and will generally proceed chronologically through the list (e.g., if the tutor has no work in category 1, category 2 becomes first priority, and so on).

Also, anyone using our tutoring services must allow ample time for the tutor to return work. Basing their decisions on their current workloads, tutors will determine reasonable deadlines for returning work on a case-by-case basis and will communicate these deadlines to students or faculty at the time of submission. As a general guideline, students and faculty should allow a minimum of 1-2 of the tutor's working days for the return of any work given to the tutor. Expecting work back from the tutor on the same day it's submitted is obviously unreasonable and unattainable.

If you have questions, comments, or concerns about these issues, please contact John Brocato at 325-1493 or brocato@engr.msstate.edu or in McCain 202D.