Chapter 6 in Oxford

I agree that writing across disciplines can be completely different and it is extremely hard to master all the writing disciplines in college. Although, they are very different I do believe that they are very few similarities throughout all of them. For example, you have to know to cite when using someone else’s words, you have to know proper grammar and the structure of an IMRAD, qualitative or quantitative research paper will be very similar throughout all the different discourses. I do agree that as a tutor taking the time to research all the different genres is an essential part of your job so you are at least slightly aware. I believe blending specialist and generalist tutors is your best bet for success. Although, I am aware that most writing center tutors are within the English/humanities field because they are excel at writing and English techniques. I think jobs in the writing center should be more widely advertised to other majors outside of English because it would help the diversity of writing centers and be beneficial to particular tutees that need help in an area outside of the English field. A lot of what I observed in the writing center has been tutors using particular strategies to approach a tutoring session. Some the strategies the Oxford text suggests I have witnessed and have been very successful in the way that the tutee seemed happy and confident at the end of the session. I strongly agree with the “be up front about what you don’t know” and “ask questions about genres in other disciplines” (Fitzgerald, Ianetta, 153). If you don’t ask questions about something that is unfamiliar to you and you just assume as the tutor the tutee knows what he/she is talking about it could in turn be wrong and it is wrong to ignore that as well.