The Language Centre of the University of Deusto offers on-line tutorials and tutorial appointments for students and academic and non-academic staff. The aim of these tutorials is to provide support when users have to write academic assignments in Basque, Spanish or English during their university studies or in their career.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE VERBUM SUPPORT CENTRE

This centre gives users the possibility to have -on request- one tutorial appointment on academic writing per semester.

The user who requests a tutorial will email a sample of the work to be considered so that the tutor can analyse it and make suggestions, which will be related to the user’s academic needs.

The commentaries made by the tutor will only have to do with structural aspects of the text, the use of quotations and references and, in general, the correct and appropriate use of the language in which the student will have to submit their piece of work. The user will be referred to the digital resources on the Verbum webpage for further assistance.

When contacting Verbum, the following points should be borne in mind:

• Verbum is not an error correction or proof reading service.
• The Verbum tutors will not comment on the content of the written sample submitted for analysis.

The Verbum tutorial service on academic writing is operative during the academic year (i.e. from October to June, except during the Christmas holidays, the Easter holidays and the months of July and August).

TUTORIALS ON–LINE

• The student fills in the on-line form on the Verbum webpage.
• The student submits a sample of their work. This sample can be a section of an academic assignment at any stage during the drafting process. This sample should have 500 words, maximum.
• The tutor will reply the student within a week and send a diagnosis as well as send some guidelines for improvement. In this first on-line tutorial the tutor will focus on aspects that can be improved and will provide suggestions so that the student can work on the sample on his own.
• The student emails the tutor his reedited version within 3 days, maximum. Failure to do so, for no justified reason, implies that the student does not wish to attend a tutorial appointment.

TUTORIALS BY APPOINTMENT

Once the on-line tutorials are over, the student can have a 20 minute tutorial appointment, if he considers it necessary. The aim of this tutorial is to deal with queries the student may have about the sample already reedited.