Before tutors start working with other writers, they are often nervous. That’s normal and expected whenever you take on a new role. Even though it is perfectly normal, it might help to read responses to common new tutor fears to feel less anxious about starting to tutor.
I’m not a good enough writer to help others. Sometimes new tutors think they have to be an expert to help another writer. Though you were probably selected to tutor because you have strong writing and communication skills, no one expects you to know everything. It’s actually not possible for one person to know everything about every writing situation and writing topic! What tutors do best is to have conversations with writers: you’ll read drafts and ask questions and the writer decides how to revise. Some people call this being “another set of eyes” or “someone to bounce ideas off of.”
Someone might ask me a question, and I won’t know the answer. This will very likely happen because as we’ve said above no one can know everything about every writing situation and writing topic. What you can do is show the writer what you would do if you have a question you don’t know the answer to:
You’ll ask another tutor
You’ll ask your teacher/director
You’ll look online (Purdue OWL has a lot of good information)
You’ll look in a writing handbook or other reference book
You’ll suggest they ask their teacher if you can’t find the answer in any of these ways.
When you do look for answers, you are making the writer feel better too! They will see that no one knows everything, and they’ll learn where to look next time they have a similar question.
It’s sort of awkward to tutor people I know. It definitely may feel a little uncomfortable at first to have a tutoring session with someone you usually interact with in a different way. It’s possible that you might tutor your best friend, your teammate, your crush, your cousin, or that one person who is in all of your classes but never talks to you. What usually can help in all of these situations is to tell the writer you’re working with how the session will go. For instance, you might say something like:
“OK, what we do first here at the Writing Center is talk about your assignment and then read the draft together out loud. We’ll have a discussion about what is going well and what might need some work. You can ask questions whenever you’d like. Sound good?”
This helps tell the writer what their role is, what your role is, and prepares them for the fact that this tutoring session will be different than your usual conversations or interactions. It is also good to remember that the writer might be nervous too! They might be feeling worried that you’ll think they are dumb or a bad writer.
Write down two worries that you have about tutoring on a piece of paper. Do not include your name. Pass your paper to the group leader who then reads them out loud, one by one. After each fear, participants in the group can talk back to those worries and offer possible strategies to reduce the worry.