Welcome to the fall semester! We’re excited for a busy, productive semester.

Last year, we held over 1,400 appointments for more than 420 students. Students from all kinds of different majors, with many different kinds of papers, find our free services downright indispensable. As our front page states, “we love to write, to listen, and to learn.” You’re invited to come try out our community for yourself; you can schedule your own appointment today by visiting our online scheduler. And a reminder: we offer synchronous online tutoring for our graduate writers and McDaniel Budapest students.

We’re excited this year to hold our tutoring sessions in a larger room, right across the hall from our old location. We’re now in Hill 102, right next to the computer lab. You are always welcome to walk in and we’ll help find a good time to meet…and offer you some tasty candy, while we’re at it!

Our diverse group of trained peer tutors host nearly 80 tutoring hours a week and are available every day except Saturday. This semester, we’re excited to offer tutoring on Sunday evenings in Whiteford and Rouzer for our first-year writers. Get a head start on your week by meeting with Leanna or Shannon; you’ll be glad you did.

We have lots of fun activities in the works for this semester, including hosting an oversized Bananagrams game before the involvement fair, helping at the Pajamapalooza party in Ensor on Friday, September 6th, and setting up a Halloween open-mic and smores at the Ensor fireplace on October 25th.

Stay in the know about these and other fun events (as well as appointment openings on the scheduler) via our facebook and twitter feeds.

We look forward to talking to you soon!

–Prof A, Director of the McDaniel College Writing Center

• “A long time ago, there was a kiing named Gribbish Von Harold. He ruled over his kingdo with an iron fist!”
• “Spock started to feel his sweat collect around his inner earlobe. To make matters worse, Ca tain Kirk had a sweaty earlobe fetish.”
• “In the garden of my mind, every body loves bananas.”

Yesterday, we hosted a poetry/fiction on-demand table outside of Glar:

Needless to say, a good time was had by all. All of our content was written on typewriters, which resulted in some…interesting results. Never fear, tho–the Writing Center has brand-spankin’ new iMacs for students to use when they visit.

Want to read more? Click here to read the rest of the Round Robin story!

Prof A

Ever heard the phrase, “going like gangbusters?” Well here at the McDaniel Writing Center, our fall semester is already “going like gangbusters.” In our first week of tutoring, we’ve already seen more than three times as many people as we did during our first week last semester.

Photo courtesy of Times Past Old Time Radio Archives

Gangbusters, indeed. But, incidentally, where does that phrase even come from? According to UrbanDictionary.com,

Gang Busters was a famous radio program that was first heard in 1936 and aired until 1957. The sound effects of police sirens, tommyguns, and screeching tires that opened the show were dramatic and exciting — this inspired the expression ‘coming on like gangbusters’. Usage has opened up to describe things that are not just exciting, but successful, intense, and many other adjectives…

Exciting? Successful? Intense, even?

Sounds like us! Schedule your own appointment today to see what all the hype is about.

Josh Ambrose, Director
Email: JAmbrose@McDaniel.edu/Phone: 410.857.2420

Welcome! We’re glad you found the McDaniel Writing Center’s all-new home on the web.

More online resources are forthcoming, including helpful handouts on grammar, thesis, citation, formatting, etc. We’ll also be posting short, fun blogs throughout the semester linking to helpful (and/or funny!) information around the web and inviting you to special events at the Writing Center, like our book-swap week.

For now, make sure you check out our tutor bios and make an appointment today to stop by the Writing Center in Hill 101 and talk about writing! Faculty, make sure to check out some handy info we have about sending your students our way.