At the Writing Center, we know that nobody ever writes up a “perfect” draft. Writing involves negotiating meaning, genres, and discipline-specific practices and is always evolving. Educating ourselves and the institutions where we work is central to our mission.
To put it simply, we’re an educational service, not an editorial service. We focus on working with writers in close collaboration through discussions about rhetorical and linguistic choices, thinking through concerns emerging from audience expectations, and developing strategies together for responding to and/or pushing back against those expectations.
If you enjoy writing and tutoring, but you’re concerned that you don’t have a “high enough level” of English to be a great consultant, or if you’re worried that you don’t remember enough of the rules of English grammar to be successful in this role — we want you to apply! The most important quality we look for in new consultants is curiosity. If you can make a year-long commitment to learning and sharing about what language is, how language shapes our lives, and how we might work together as a community at UMB and beyond to expand the boundaries of academic language and writing–then we hope you will join our consultant team in 2025-6.
