Brandon H.

Tutor, Ott Memorial Writing Center

Tutoring Expertise and Passions

Salutations! My name is Brandon (he/him/his) and I am a graduate student here at Marquette studying Student Affairs. This is my 5th year at the Ott, and I was in Marquette’s Honors program in undergrad so I am familiar with their assignments. I am proficient in Chicago citations and I am fluent in French. I love working with all types of writing, but my favorites are creative pieces. My favorite writers include Agatha Christie and Taylor Swift.

Citation Expertise

APA, Chicago

Multilingual Expertise 

French

Statement of Tutoring Philosophy

As a writer myself, it is very easy to fall down the rabbit hole of being confident that I have successfully written about the topic that my professor has assigned. It is a wonderful skill—that is, until I get the final product back with a grade that isn’t as satisfactory as I would like. This confidence means I don’t always seek a second set of eyes to affirm whether or not I have successfully met the requirements my professor has met, and in doing so creates my personal dilemma and philosophy.

It is my belief that one cannot be an exceptional writer without putting in the effort to actively understand how they write—and by association, build a confidence that they are writing something worth submitting— and it is my belief that without admitting fault, one cannot grow. Therefore, as a tutor, it is my philosophy not to simply provide the resource of the writing center as a one time use on a single paper, but to build a confidence in the writer that can be carried across their other academic writings. It isn’t about the minute fixes that can be made in a single appointment, but the concepts that can be taken from that appointment and applied after the conference has ended in the writer’s own schedule.

Goals 

  • Work with writing from all disciplines to better my overall knowledge as a tutor.
  • Decrease the stigma that surrounds the writing center being a place for students that aren’t good at writing.
  • Better intertwine the Honors Program and the Writing Center to provide honors students with a clearer idea of what the writing center actually does.