The Graduate Writing & Tutoring Center

Our Mission

The Graduate Writing & Tutoring Center seeks to empower graduate students at MIIS by providing with useful, immediate takeaways from our tutoring sessions while supporting students with tools and suggestions to independently improve their academic and professional communication skills. We assist students of all disciplines and language backgrounds in strengthening their communication skills. 

Tutoring Sessions

• We have both on-site (in Monterey) and online (by Zoom) tutoring sessions available.  When you make your appointment, let your tutor know which you prefer
• Be sure to tell your tutor what you’d like to focus on during your appointment.
• During a tutoring session, our tutors will ask you questions about your session goals and concerns and guide you through ideas for improving your communication skills. 
• You can ask for help from our tutors on a variety of scholarly and professional genres. These might range from your academic course work (e.g., research papers, analytical essays, policy memos, presentations) to more professional products such as conference abstracts and presentations, op-eds, grant proposals and applications, journal articles, blog posts, etc.
• The tutors can help you with any stage of the process: brainstorming ideas, composing outlines, structuring your presentation or paper, and adhering to stylistic conventions of your field (e.g., MLA, APA, or Chicago).
• Your session focuses on you and your needs. The tutors are committed to helping you express yourself more clearly. This means that they are not going to “fix” your work, but will help give you the tools to do so.
• If you’d like to “Meet our tutors,” click on the Meet our Tutors links to the right. 

Make an Appointment 

• The GWC runs on appointments and does not have drop-in hours available. Book an appointment below using your MIIS/Middlebury e-mail address for your one-on-one session.
• We have both on-site (MIIS campus) and online (by Zoom) appointments available.  When you book your appointment, let us know which you prefer.
• Please let your tutor know what you would like to work on with them when you make your appointment so they can prepare in advance.
• If you would like your tutor to review a draft/assignment with you, please e-mail your product to your tutor at least 24 hours before your appointment so that they have time to read your work. Don’t worry if a draft is not “perfect” or “finished.” Send it along anyway!
• Once an appointment is made through the system, you will receive a confirmation email about your appointment. Our tutors will also get in touch with you to request your paper and make the necessary arrangements for the meeting.
• Please make only ONE appointment at a time, in order to leave appointment availability for other students.  After you meet with your tutor, you can make a follow-up appointment if needed.
• If you think you won’t be able to make it to your appointment, please make sure you cancel it within no less than 24-hours’ notice to avoid a late cancellation/no-show penalty. You can cancel your appointment by following the instructions on the appointment confirmation e-mail.
• If you have a choice between tutors at a time you’d like and would like to see who might best suit your needs, click on Meet our Tutors in the menu to the right and read their bios.
• If available times don’t match your schedule or timezone, please Contact us (link to the right) and we can make special arrangements. 

Workshops

The GWC offers occasional workshops.  We try to offer them during the MIIS Community Hour timeslot on Tuesdays (12-2 PST).  Please check MiCommunity for announcements of details and times of any upcoming workshops.

Past Workshops

Using ChatGPT  [Video of workshop] [Slides]  

Data Visualization [Slides] 

Watch the FA23 Academic Integrity Workshop here. (Passcode: w+7Y6RRr)

Watch the Zotero Workshop here. 

Watch the Academic Presentations Workshop here.

Writing Resources

Here are some links to good writing resources that may be helpful:

Purdue Online Writing Lab: Resources for subject-specific writing, preparing job materials, and style guides (APA, MLA, Chicago)

The Writing Center at UNC, Chapel Hill: Resources for different genres of writing, as well as for various aspects of the writing process (e.g., procrastination, reorganizing, flow) and grammatical struggles

The Writer’s Handbook (University of Wisconsin-Madison): Resources for different genres of writing, including job materials and application essays, as well as for the writing process and grammatical issues. 

Contact Us

If you have any questions, please contact us at writingcenter@middlebury.edu.

Meet Our English Language Tutors

Syed Ali Zia Jaffery

Ali is a student at the Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies program. He is also Deputy Director of the Center for Security, Strategy and Policy Research, University of Lahore, and Associate Editor of Pakistan Politico Ali was a Visiting Fellow at the Stimson Center, Washington, D.C. Ali regularly writes on strategic issues for national and international publications, to include Routledge, South Asian Voices , The National Interest, The Atlantic Council, CSIS, Daily Times, and The News, among others. Ali is an alumnus of Woodrow Wilson Center’s Nuclear Proliferation History Project Nuclear History Boot Camp. His research interests lie in the fields of nuclear deterrence, strategic stability, and geopolitics. He taught undergraduate level courses on foreign policy, national security, arms control& disarmament, and non-proliferation for 5 years.

Yan Xu 

Yan is a second-year TESOL student at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies with a background in teaching English to international students at the college level in China. Yan is currently engaged in the EAPP practicum, focusing on helping students enhance their academic and professional English skills. A lover of both English prose and verse, Yan has two poems featured in Peace, Poetry, & Policy: An Anthology of Poetry about Peace & Social Change, which is set to be published by Lever Press. In 2023-2024, Yan was a Kathryn Wasserman Davis Collaborative in Conflict Transformation Fellow, completing a project on Global Englishes and linguistic equity.

Ayuk Agbor

Over the span of almost a decade, Ayuk has had the opportunity to collaborate and engage with various stakeholders on jobs and assignments which required extensive amounts of research and writing. In the process, he has been able to hone his skills in writing for varied contexts (profit and nonprofit) and styles. Some of these skills include: 

• Elaborating and Structuring problems 
• Developing theories of change 
• Developing policy briefs and business proposals 
• Developing and writing Grant proposal 
• Writing and editing Academic articles and papers 
• Literature Reviews 

Reach-out to collaborate on your writing engagements. 

Peng Chen

Peng, who also goes by Halcyon, is a first year TLM student with a strong background in literature, linguistics, and translation. He has abundant experiences in providing constructive feedback on both Chinese and English academic writing. He has also worked on editing and proofreading projects, offering valuable advice to improve writing structure, language accuracy, and style. He enjoys helping students improve their writing skills, whether for academic or professional purposes.

Jiakai (Jackie) Deng 

Jiakai (Jackie) is an accomplished language tutor with advanced proficiency in both English and Chinese, supported by a robust academic background and significant experience in translation. As a native Chinese speaker and fluent English communicator with an IELTS score of 8.5, he is adept at guiding students in the development of their language skills. Jackie has held translation and content creation roles across diverse renowned institutions, including the World Economic Forum, the United Nations World Food Programme, and New York University Shanghai. He is highly skilled in working with students from diverse academic programs and proficiency levels, providing tailored, constructive feedback to enhance their ability to articulate ideas and refine academic writing in both English and Chinese.

Meet our Language Tutors

Spanish

Maria Alejandra Rios Avetisova Sadarriaga

Maria Alejandra  is in the second year of the Translation and Interpretation Spanish program at MIIS. She graduated with a major in Political Science from Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Medellín. She also has two years toward a Bachelor of Arts in Romance Languages with Concentrations in French and Spanish at Universidad de Antioquia. She has experience in Political Science publications and currently is a member of Research Group EALE in collaboration with the Universidad de Antioquia and Université de Grenoble Alpes working on the project “Building a culture of piece in Colombia: discursive perspectives and actions educational.” Assistant at MIIS. She loves learning and currently has a A2 German proficiency.

Luis Reynoso

Luis is a first year Translation & Interpretation student.  He’s a Monterey local ready to help his fellow classmates.  Luis found his passion for the Spanish language after moving from Mexico to the United States when he discovered that there was a big need for Spanish speakers and interpreters in his community. That is why he decided to major in Spanish Studies and Hispanic Cultures before coming to Middlebury. His strengths include basic grammar, pronunciation, and writing composition in Spanish. 

Chinese

Emily (Zhi Ying) Wen

Emily is a first-year student in the joint program of Translation and Interpretation (TI) and Translation and Localization Management (TLM). She recently graduated with a bachelor’s degree from National Tsing Hua University, where she focused on linguistics and sociology. Her fascination with the intricate nuances of languages has been a defining aspect of her life: As someone who is half Korean and half Taiwanese, she was born in Korea and raised in Taiwan, immersed in Korean, Hakka, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese. Additionally, her international academic journey, including a junior year at Seoul National University, a sophomore year in U.S. high school and multiple visits as a student to Japan, has deepened her understanding of language acquisition across different cultural contexts.

Peng Chen

Peng, who also goes by Halcyon, is a first year TLM student with a strong background in literature, linguistics, and translation. He has abundant experiences in providing constructive feedback on both Chinese and English academic writing. He has also worked on editing and proofreading projects, offering valuable advice to improve writing structure, language accuracy, and style. He enjoys helping students improve their writing skills, whether for academic or professional purposes.

Jiakai (Jackie) Deng 

Jiakai (Jackie) is an accomplished language tutor with advanced proficiency in both English and Chinese, supported by a robust academic background and significant experience in translation. As a native Chinese speaker and fluent English communicator with an IELTS score of 8.5, he is adept at guiding students in the development of their language skills. Jackie has held translation and content creation roles across diverse renowned institutions, including the World Economic Forum, the United Nations World Food Programme, and New York University Shanghai. He is highly skilled in working with students from diverse academic programs and proficiency levels, providing tailored, constructive feedback to enhance their ability to articulate ideas and refine academic writing in both English and Chinese.

Aaron Tsai

Aaron is a first-year student seeking the MA degree in Teaching Foreign Language. He has used his background as a heritage Chinese speaker and his decade-plus study of French to help tutor fellow students at his alma mater of Southern Methodist University in Texas, where he double-majored in both. Aaron empathises with the journey of learning these two languages, so if you’re needing someone to help demystify, reinforce, or just listen to your trials and tribulations in learning, he is more than happy to do so!

French

Emma Beveridge 

Emma is a student in the International Policy and Development program with a focus on language and migration policy. She graduated from Wake Forest University in 2020 with a degree in Sociology and minors in Creative Writing and Middle East Studies. Following her graduation, Emma moved to northern France, where she began work as an English language assistant and tutor. 

Since then, she has predominantly split her time between France and the US while continuing to support students learning English as a foreign language. She has also focused on her own writing during this time, spending recent summers working at writing retreats where she assisted writers in developing the content, structure, and style of their work at various stages. 

As a longtime student of French, beginning at a language immersion school twenty years ago, Emma is eager to leverage her experiences and skills to support your French language and writing needs. 

Japanese

Aloha Komatsu

Aloha is a student in the Translation and Interpretation program. Currently, she works as a TA for the Japanese Program. Aloha was born in Japan and grew up there until she was in third grade. She then moved to Los Angeles, California, and lived there until her senior year of high school. She went back to Japan to attend International Christian University in Tokyo where she majored in Media Communication Culture with a focus on translation and interpretation. While attending university, she worked as a student interpreter at on-campus symposiums and conferences. After graduation, she took a gap term to work as a freelance translator and interpreter. Spending nearly the same amount of time in the U.S. and Japan, Aloha not only acquired language skills but also gained a deep understanding of both cultures. She plans to utilize this knowledge to become a translator and interpreter who can connect the two worlds. 

Russian

Aleksandra Zubenko 

Aleksandra is a MA Candidate in a dual degree Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies Program between Moscow State Institute of International Relations in Russia and Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey,  current fellow of Marie Sklodowska-Curie IAEA Program.  She was born and raised in Russia, and has always had passion for the Russian language and literature. She is also knowledgeable about Russian domestic and foreign policy, as her bachelor degree was from Moscow State Institute of International Relations - the alma mater for most of the Russian diplomats.   Previously she worked as a research assistant in Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in PIR Center as a coordinator of the “Oral History of Nuclear Nonproliferation” project.