Location: L-125
Phone: (201) 447-7489

Dr. John Findura, Writing Center Supervisor

About the Writing Center at Bergen

When you enter through the main doors of our Tutoring Center (L125) and pass the reception desk (where you’ll make your appointments), you’ll find the Writing Center at the far end of the room.

We have computers and a wide variety of handbooks and composition readers available for use in the Writing Center, as well as handouts designed to answer common writing questions, including, “How do I use MLA citation?” and “How do I paraphrase and when should I quote?”

Visit the Writing Center early for help with essays, research papers, and even creative writing! We can help you get started as well as help you revise. Writing Center tutors can:

  • Identify writing skills you’ve mastered and those you still need to learn.
  • Find patterns of error and offer techniques to encourage independent self-correction.
  • Ask clarifying questions.
  • Help you own your work, locate your audience, and refine your voice.
  • Give you an opportunity to write and receive immediate feedback.
  • Assist with pre-writing strategies such as outlining, brainstorming, and clustering.
  • Help with reading comprehension of textbooks, essays, and assignments.
  • Offer research strategies, including how to narrow/broaden/complicate the scope of your thesis/question to meet page requirements.
  • help you quote, paraphrase, and properly cite sources, both in-text and in a Works Cited, so as to avoid plagiarism.
  • Listen and act as a scribe and sounding board to help you hear yourself.

Additional Information

The Writing Center is home to a thriving community of writers. Writers work closely with peer and professional tutors on all facets of the writing process, from the development of and refining of ideas to revising their writing to practicing effective self-editing strategies.

Tutors offer a supportive, challenging environment in which students can practice critical thinking in all their assignments, take intellectual risks, and learn to do academic research, reading, and writing to meet the demands of 21st century literacies. The Center offers assistance in reading and writing across the curriculum as well as supporting students producing reading and writing as part of English basic skills, composition and literature courses at all levels in the college.

The Center also acts as a resource for faculty who want to workshop their own writing and teaching for their classes or their own professional projects, such as grant proposals, dissertations, or publications. The Writing Center is staffed by peer and professional writing tutors who receive ongoing training in writing and tutoring pedagogy by the Center’s full-time administrator.

The Writing Center serves the writing needs of the College community. Writing Tutoring is available for all registered students, regardless of whether you are currently enrolled in a writing course. During busy periods (midterms and finals), students currently enrolled in English courses will be given priority in scheduling appointments with tutors, while all other students may take advantage of our weekly writing walk-in hours.

Writing Links

Reference Materials:

Research:

Writing Center Links for Tutors and those interested in Writing Center Theory and Practice

Publications:

Blogs:
Peercentered: is a space for peer writing tutors/consultants or anyone interested in writing centers to blog with their colleagues from around the world. Bloggers here will share their ideas, experiences, or insight.