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Writing Center Frequently Asked Questions

We are located on the ground floor of Milne Library, in room 203. If you use the front entrance, just turn past the CIT help desk and then you should see us!

For the spring 2026 semester we are open from 12-7pm Mondays through Thursdays, 12-2pm on Fridays, and 4-7pm on Sundays.

We work with students at any level and from any major. Some of the students who visit us feel like writing is not their strong suit, so they want to receive extra help, while others are quite skilled writers who recognize that receiving and responding to feedback from attentive readers is part of the process of producing strong writing.

Our peer writing consultants are all undergraduate students who have taken WRTG 406: Writing Center Theory and Practice in order to learn how to effectively work with writers at all levels.

They also come from a variety of majors. For spring 2026, the majors, minors, and concentrations represented in our staff include: English (Literature & Creative Writing tracks), Sociology, Psychology, Anthropology, Early Childhood Education, Art History, Comparative Literature, French, Spanish, Communication, Biology, Sociomedical Sciences, Adolescence Education, Neuroscience, Biochemistry, Linguistics, and History.

No! All of our staff are trained to work with writing from all disciplines, writing grant proposals or personal statements for grad school/law school/medical school, or any other type of writing.

That being said, when making an appointment, you can choose to search by major if you’d like to work with someone with a major close to yours

Writing Center sessions are based in collaboration and conversation. One of our highly-trained peer consultants will sit down with you one-on-one, discuss the writing assignment and any concerns or questions you have, read through the assignment/parts of the assignment (either silently or out loud) or ask you to read parts of the assignment out loud, and talk through ideas for revision with you.

By the end of the session, you and the consultant should have identified some specific strategies for revision that you can work on after you leave.

Please note that while grammar may be one thing (among many) that consultants discuss with you, we are not an editing service.

You should bring either a laptop/tablet where you can access your writing assignment, or a paper copy of the assignment. While you can upload your draft when making an appointment, you will still want to have a copy in front of you.

We also suggest bringing a copy of the assignment prompt or description, as our consultants will be able to better assist you if they can see what the assignment is asking for! Any relevant class notes, pre-writing you’ve done, or feedback received from classmates or your instructor will also be helpful.

While you select an hour block when scheduling an appointment, you should expect your session to be between 45 and 50 minutes. The extra time is for the consultant to write a brief report on the session before the hour is up.

While we encourage appointments, we do accept walk-ins! So if we’re open and you suddenly reach a point where you want feedback on your writing, feel free to stop in.

As of Spring 2026 we are using WCOnline, and you can make an appointment . You will sign-in with your Geneseo credentials, and then you can choose an open time slot on the schedule. If it is your first time logging into WCOnline, it will ask you some registration questions.

Not unless you want us to let them know. We can send verification that you attended, and even a brief copy of the post-session report we write, to your professor upon request, but we will only do this if you ask us to. Otherwise, the Writing Center staff will be the only ones who know you have visited us.

At the Writing Center, we do not encourage the use of Generative AI (GenAI) products such as OpenAI鈥檚 ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Anthrophic鈥檚 Claude, or Google Gemini. At the same time, we recognize the complex decisions students have to make when considering GenAI use, especially when some instructors allow it and some assignments even explicitly call for it.

Therefore, while we will not encourage GenAI use, we also do not judge students who have used it. We do ask, however, that you please disclose any GenAI use on assignments you bring in so we can more effectively work with you. Depending on the extent or type of use, we may ask to see the instructor鈥檚 policy and/or assignment prompt so we know that this assignment and/or instructor allows GenAI use.

With these factors in mind, and because we recognize the value of a process-based approach to writing and understand that grappling with frustration and difficulty is often a necessary part of learning, our overall approach when you disclose GenAI use will be to remind you that your own thoughts matter, ask you questions about why you felt the need or desire to use GenAI on this assignment, and help you weigh the costs and benefits of doing so. Our goal is to assist you in developing confidence in your own voice and your own thoughts.

This stance towards GenAI arises from our commitment to Geneseo鈥檚 equity-centered mission. That is, we believe there are several factors writers must consider before engaging with GenAI products. For example, researchers have found that such products:

• Reinforce covert racism and dialect prejudice (; ; )
• Assign lower scores to writing that seems to be composed by Black and Latinx students ()
• Evaluate resumes by men more highly than those by women (
• Expose students to increased sexual harassment and bullying ()
• And more

Even more troubling, humans exposed to biased GenAI outputs have been shown to inherit those biases ().

Moreover, mounting evidence suggests GenAI products will hinder the writing process more than they will help. For example:

• Overreliance on GenAI products has been shown to negatively impact critical thinking skills (; ; )
• GenAI products poorly summarize scientific articles () and ignore article retractions ().
• We learn less when we ask GenAI products for information than we do when we use traditional online search methods (; ).
• GenAI products often make up incorrect answers rather than looking up the information (). OpenAI has admitted , as they are an expected result of how these products work.

In short, we are in agreement with the findings that suggest .

We encourage writers who wish to learn more to visit the following sites:

Each spring semester we hire for the following fall. The position will be adverised, but Dr. Claire Jackson will also contact students who have been recommended or expressed interest and encourage them to apply. If you’re interested, send her an email at cjackson@geneso.edu