Inside interview with Interim Director Mary Pull

NDSU students who are looking to strengthen their writing skills or need advice on their work can look no further, the Center for Writers is here to help.

“We are a support service for students of all grade levels, classes, we even help faculty and staff and we can help on a lot of different levels,” said Mary Pull, Interim Director. “We can help with course papers, so undergrads can come here and say ‘I am in a history class and I don’t know how to write this paper. Help me.'”

The center is a free consultant service located in the library’s lower level. Their goal is to help students become independent writers and work on overall writing ability. They also work with faculty as well as ESL speakers.

“We can help with anything related to writing and speaking in class. We can also help non-native english speakers with their pronunciation, english, and grammar skills,” Pull said.

Students can schedule one-on-one sessions by going to the Center for Writers web page @www.ndsu.edu/cfwriters/  and from there make appointments with staff that can help with a variety of writing disciplines. 

“We do a variety of things as far as undergrad/grad level. We do one-on-one consultations, we also work with groups, so if you have a group project and you are all doing parts of the paper you all come in and sit down with us and talk about what we are seeing,” said Pull. “So we can help students get started on a paper, we can help them if they come back with a draft, give them feedback on the draft and we can help them before they hand them in to polish it up.” 

Pull expressed her hope for students to utilize this resource and feel comfortable in the space. 

“We are not that teacher that has the red pen that bleeds all over,” said Pull. “We aren’t going to take over that paper, we are going to talk about it and give advice, but really the student owns it and that student will make the decisions about it.”

Pull also shared what a one-on-one session might look like.

“We will sit down look at the assignment sheet, we’ll ask you questions ‘How do you feel about what you’ve done,’ ‘explain to me how you focus and organize,’ ‘what resources are you using,’ so it’s a give and take. [It’s not] I’m your editor and I am gonna fix everything,” Pull said.

The Center for Writers is open during normal course hours and 50 minute sessions can be made up to twice a week. Students should come prepared with assignment sheets, notes, drafts and any other requirement given by the instructor. 

Pull stressed that the Center for Writers is not a grammar service and students should come prepared to talk about their work.

“I am an advocate of the revision process, none of this should wait until the night before its due, so we discourage that. We don’t turn people away but if a person comes and says ‘will you check my grammar it’s due tomorrow,” we can help you understand your mistakes and how to fix them but as I read I’m questioning a few things so next time come earlier in the process,” said Pull “We really encourage students to get started right away when the assignment is due and make sure they have a handle of what is required.”

Students interested in becoming consultants can enroll in a course to learn more about peer tutoring, they can then be hired to the Center for Writers following the course completion.

“I actually teach a course in the spring called peer tutoring and writing in the disciplines. In that course we talk about writing in all the different fields and expectations, we look at example assignments on campus, they practice working with students, so it’s really intended to make them generalists tutors, or consultants for all kinds of documents and majors.” said Pull. “[The course] builds their confidence, they work on their strategies so that course is pretty intense and I try to hire from the course.”

Students who take the course can be hired into the center; those who are not enrolled may also contact Pull on openings, however priority is given to those who have completed the course. 

According to Pull, the class is a great opportunity for students even if they do not plan on working after.

“The class is great and it looks great on a transcript because it really shows that you like to interact with people. That’s one thing that job searches look for is people people. You are trained to work with people one-on-one and corporations value that as well.” Pull said.

The Center for Writers is a free service open to all students at NDSU. Pull expressed her hope that students will see the Center for Writers as a safe space to get help and advice.

“I just want to encourage students to be proactive. I know that is kind of cliche now but don’t sit back and let college happen to you. Be interested, you are spending a lot of money to be here, invest your time and energy into getting as much out of it as you can and part of that is talking to people,” said Pull. “This is a friendly space to come to chat or meet other people who are interested in writing and you don’t have to sit in your dorm room at midnight working on a paper all on your lonesome. You can come here and we try to be friendly faces. People who find us typically learn and come back.”