Here I am thinking about the best way to tell you, my friend, about the purposes of OBU’s writing center. You might be new here, so I want to do my best to make sure you know what we are all about. After many ideas that I simply did not like, I landed on one in particular that I thought could be both fun to compose and beneficial for you. I finally decided that the best way to tell you about the writing center is to tell you some of the things we are not. So, please enjoy all the things we are not here at the OBU Speer Writing Center.

I think the most important thing for you to know about us as a writing center is that we are not scary. I promise. We are all nice people who are eager to help you become a better writer. If you are nervous about bringing your progress on paper (or lack thereof) to an English major, please don’t be. We have been there too. We get writer’s block, and we look at our own writing and wonder why it’s not better all the time. Trust me. Whether you’ve only got one idea with nothing on paper or a full draft you are not proud of, we are here to help you improve your writing with practical tips and valuable strategies that you can add to your writing talents.

Another thing that we as a writing center are not is editors. We are not someone with a red pen in hand ready to mark through grammatical errors, misplaced modifiers, or passive verbs. Our job is not to mindlessly correct things that are errant. Absolutely no learning takes place through that, and we are in the business of helping you learn. We will never spend the half hour session pointing out your paper’s mistakes. Instead, we will focus on strategies that can be used to make you a better writer. For example, instead of telling you that your thesis is wrong, we will take some time to explain what a good thesis does for the remainder of the paper. When you have a strong thesis, you are able to build a strong paper that always points back to your main argument and supports it with appropriate evidence. In the writing center, we will never take your paper and edit it. We will work with you to make you a better writer for both the assignment you bring in and all the ones you write in the future.

So, now that I have told you some of the things we are not, let me tell you one thing we are. We are a group of English majors who are eager to help you become a better writer. Whether you need someone to bounce ideas off of or someone to help you understand topic sentences or anything in-between, please come see us, my friend. We are here to help.

You can make an appointment in the Speer Writing Center by emailing them at [email protected]. During the fall 2020 semester, they offer sessions every day of the week except Saturday.