Session as Primary Consultant #4

This was one of the few non-ESL sessions I've had. The student was much like me when I was a freshman - just trying to get through her required science lab. I had written the same paper she was working on, although she had chosen a different topic. So I was more or less familiar with what was expected of her with this paper, which made it much easier to help. I could tell she was pretty frustrated, because her comments on her last paper were pretty ambiguous, and when she went to her TA for help on citing sources, her TA gave her information that was just plain wrong. So she needed my help citing her sources, because her TA told her the wrong way to do it. Other than that, her main issue was organization. She had a paragraph or two that either had nothing to do with her topic or actually refuted it, so I explained how to shape those parts so that they supported her argument instead of undermining it. Some of her language was convoluted, so I had her explain to me what she was trying to say and then we looked at her paper to see if she was effectively saying it. That's quickly becoming my favorite tactic, because a lot of times students just have trouble putting their ideas on paper. Overall, this was a good session, because once the student got over her exasperation with the paper and the TA, she was very open to what I had to say and working on her paper.