consult, v.

After the readings we've had in the past couple of weeks, I have been thinking more about what it means to actually help a writer. My favorite definition of the verb consult, especially in regard to the Writing Center, is the following:

consult, v. To confer about, deliberate upon, debate, discuss, consider - OED

It's interesting the way words that may, at first glance, seem interchangeable have such different connotations. From the time I started university, I told my parents I wanted to be a writing tutor. Although I knew that at the Writing Center tutors were actually consultants, I thought that consultant was just a nicer, if a slightly more pretentious, title. Everyone knows what a tutor does, but who really understands what the work of a consultant entails? I certainly didn't, even in the weeks leading up to the beginning of this course.

I was always the student who thought editing papers was a rather enjoyable puzzle. I liked the act of carefully selecting and changing words, smoothing out punctuation, and assembling the phrases in a manner so sentences flowed gracefully into paragraphs, and paragraphs flowed into arguments. It was a game that I often played with my own papers, or the papers of my writing-apprehensive friends. I would offer, nonchalantly, to look over their papers, as if it was a service I was willing to provide simply because I was such an amazing friend. There was no such sacrifice.

But in these little acts of correction and advice - I cannot say they were really consultations - I was really only giving my opinion on what I would do to make the words written "sound better." I thought myself pretty skilled with that sort of assistance. Now I see that what I was doing was only surface level, like trying to drain a lake by taking handfuls of water. Scooping each handful of grammatical errors, of misplaced commas, of awkward phrases does not change the lake's depth, its underlying problems. It's a one-sided act which tires the tutor and overwhelms the tutee.

I guess it all comes down to the idea in North's work that we are trying to create a better writer, not a better paper. I'm still trying to grasp this idea, which may explain the reason why it seems to appear in so many of my blog post. I think it is a concept which works, if not better, than at least more smoothly, in theory than actual practice, especially since so many of my peers at the University are unaware of the true purpose of a writing center. When a student comes to the Writing Center wanting a better paper, it is can be difficult to avoid the temptation of an easy correction session. After all, to consult - to confer about, to deliberate upon, to debate, to discuss, to consider - takes time and conscious, active effort, both on the part of the consultant and the student. However, the tips given in the Bedford Guide about how to use tools both on paper and on word formatting are concrete methods that I can use to shape a consultation that is beneficial to the student and more rewarding for me. The more methods I discover for creating an appointment that is not a proof-reading session, but is an active, dynamic consultation, the more I can actually envision myself as a writing consultant.