While several Writing Center clients are challenged by local issues, consultations are designed to focus on global issues instead. So what’s the difference? And why are local issues being pushed aside?
Local issues most often involve problems with punctuation. APA format is also considered local. Global issues, on the other hand, deal with broader concerns in composition. (Some common global issues include flow and focus.) The reason that consultations revolve around global issues rather than local issues can be best described using an analogy (I know, I know. Writers love analogies!) :
If you bought an old car and had to fix it up so that it were drivable, you wouldn’t start by polishing the car, would you? Probably not. You would instead start with the inside of the car to ensure that the guts were in working order. After all, a polished car isn’t going to function if the engine and transmission are shot, and the same goes for a paper. If the paper doesn’t make sense to the reader, there’s no sense in making sure that it is polished (i.e. null and void of misused commas and semicolons, run-on sentences, etc.). For this reason, during Writing Center sessions I work first to make sure that global issues are addressed. A focus on local issues can distract the client from the composition-oriented purpose of the session. However, if I, the consultant, notice a problematic pattern as I am reading the client’s work (for example, a series of comma splices), the pattern will be addressed. The pattern will be pointed out to the client, and the client will be directed to corrective examples and appropriate resources–this will allow the client to resolve the local issue and create knowledge that can be carried into future writings.
