June 21, 2020

East Mississippi Community College students who need help with writing assignments can take advantage of free online tutoring services available through the college’s Golden Triangle and Scooba campuses.

Writing consultants at the campuses transitioned to online operations in March following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

Writing consultant Matthew Wiggins assists students enrolled in English classes taught at the Scooba campus who need help with assignments.

“He will occasionally pick up special projects assigned to students by other teachers as time allows,” said EMCC humanities instructor Janet Briggs, who is the Scooba campus department chair for Humanities and Fine Arts.

Students can also request help through the Writing Center on EMCC’s Golden Triangle campus Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and on Fridays from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Students who submit a paper for review after 3 p.m. will receive a response by noon the next business day.

Golden Triangle campus writing consultants Laura Beth Berry and Cynthia Sanders can help students with essays, speeches, research papers, presentations, resumes, reports and applications, among other things.

“Laura Beth and Cynthia do a fantastic job helping students with their written projects,” Golden Triangle campus Writing Center Director Ginny Leonard said. “We get a lot of feedback from students who are thrilled with the help they have received and our instructors often comment on how much the students’ writing skills have improved as a result of the coaching they received from the Writing Center.”

Briggs said she has received similar feedback from students and instructors on the Scooba campus.

“One of our instructors who works with dual enrollment students from Kemper County High School said she has seen a huge difference in her students’ writing skills after they have worked with Matthew,” Briggs said.

While the writing consultants won’t correct the students’ papers, they will work with them to identify areas in which they are having difficulties.

“We are trying to help them become better self-editors,” Sanders said in an interview earlier this year.

Students enrolled at the Scooba campus who would like help with their English assignments can email Wiggins at mwiggins@eastms.edu using their college email address. Students can choose to correspond with Wiggins via email or schedule an appointment with him on Zoom, a free online app that allows the writing consultant and student to review papers, outlines or notes during a live chat.

For help from the Golden Triangle campus Writing Center, students will need to schedule an appointment online with Berry or Sanders at emccwritingcenter.setmore.com. Students who have not used the service before will need to set up an account using their school email address.

Students can book consultations by email, video chat or Zoom.

“A lot of our instructors are using Zoom and we are encouraging students to use this option when possible,” Leonard said. “It is really helpful when the student and the writing consultant can review a writing project while speaking to each other in real time.”

Students can also share their screen with the tutor during live chat with the “Video Chat” option. There are two options for students to submit Microsoft Word documents for review:

• Students using the online version of Word through Microsoft 365 can simply use the “share” button at the top right corner of the Word document to send a link of the document to their tutor via email. Students will still need to make an appointment using Setmore, and the option to send the assignment via email is also on the emccwritingcenter.setmore.com homepage.
• Students using traditional Microsoft Word (not an online version) will also make an appointment using Setmore and attach the document to the email address they will find at the emccwritingcenter.setmore.com homepage.

Those with questions for the Golden Triangle Writing Center can email emccwritingcenter@eastms.edu. For questions about the Scooba campus, email mwiggins@eastms.edu.

“This is a great resource for our students and we encourage them to take advantage of the services we offer,” Leonard said. “One of the big benefits of transitioning to online is students from any of our campuses can receive help from one of our writing consultants.”

Briggs is grateful for the services the writing consultants provide.

“With the campuses being closed, it’s great that students have a place to go where they can get some help,” Briggs said.