FAQs

We are peers - students like you - and we see eye to eye with you. The only difference is that we have a bit more experience in academic writing, have been trained by the Writing Centre to tutor you, and continuously develop our tutoring skills further.

During the current conditional on-site operations, our writing tutoring takes place online, although we offer some in-person consultations.

We offer tutoring via Zoom (video conferencing). To use this service, you make an individual appointment just like you would for a session in the library with our ILIAS calendar. The online appointments are labelled accordingly.  Everything else is explained in the confirmation email you receive after booking - it is simple and straightforward. Just like in the sessions in the library, we will talk to you about your individual questions and can also look at your text if you like.

We can help with anything and everything to do with academic writing: questions about finding a topic, narrowing down a broad idea, structuring your paper, the writing process, revision and editing, or if you would simply like some feedback about your text. We also give advice on academic genres and their peculiarities or on how to overcome writer's block.

Our tutoring service is open to all students who want to produce good writing. It doesn't matter if you are just starting your degree and are unsure what is expected of you at the university or whether you have already gained some experience in academic writing and the feedback on your texts has been ok so far: The tutoring service can help you write even better texts and develop your writing skills further. Good writing is not an innate talent - it is a skill you can learn. To do so, you need to practice it, reflect on it, talk to others about it, and get feedback on your texts. The writing tutoring service at the University of Konstanz is offered by students for students and for all disciplines. At present, there is no comparable offer for emerging researchers even if they might benefit from a writing tutoring service.

Most of our tutoring sessions are conducted in German, but many of our tutors are also happy to hold a session in English. If you would like to speak English during the session it is best if you let us know beforehand via email so we can ensure that the respective tutor is comfortable with the language. We always try to ensure that we have a multilingual team and are keen to attract tutors who speak more than one language.

The language spoken in the session is one thing, the other is the language the text is written in. If you need to write a text in German or English (be it as a first or second language) you have come to the right place. However, we do not offer language tutoring or an editing service. If you write in a language other than English or German we may not be able to read your text, but we can still offer advice on your writing process. If you are in doubt, please feel free to come and see us to discuss things.

Absolutely, as it helps us prepare for your tutoring session. Write us an email  and attach up to four pages of text, your idea for a table of contents, your notes on your research question, or whatever else you have. Ideally you should also let us know what your questions are about these texts or what aspects you would like feedback on.

Of course, we can talk about your text in general during the consultation, but detailed feedback on up to four pages of your text can first give you a sense of orientation so that you know what you need to improve and what you already have a handle on.

No. Writing tutoring can help you in all phases of the writing process: in understanding the task your lecturer has given you, in finding and narrowing down your topic, in developing a research question, in structuring your ideas and in matters of academic language and correct referencing. We can also help you to motivate yourself, identify a working schedule, or find a way to overcome writer's block.

We do not offer an editing or proofreading service.

The writing tutoring service helps you in your current writing project and helps you get ready for your next writing tasks - because the next text is always waiting just around the corner. To do this, we talk about your writing and your texts with you and together find answers to your questions.

If you have some general questions about academic writing or are not sure exactly if or how we can help you, you can just drop by our open office hours and we'll talk about it.

If you already know what you need advice on you will benefit more if you come prepared. We can help you best if you:

a) book an appointment so that we know you are coming and can reserve time just for you.

b) send us an email in which you put down as clearly as possible what you need from us / what is important to you. Ideally you should attach the drafts you would like to talk about as well. Please remember that we need a bit of time to prepare for the session and can only read about four pages of text per session. If you send us more than that, let us know which parts you would like to focus on.

We are trained to give feedback on academic texts, that is, term papers, essays, exposes, final theses etc. However, we can also help you with your letters of motivation, application letters etc. If you would like someone to take the time to discuss a text like that and get constructive feedback from a third party, you have come to the right place. If you need specific information on applications, curriculum vitaes etc, the Career Service is a good point of call for you.