Editing line by is probably the most common way I’ve found myself working with the clients. I am sure most consultants will agree when I say that most clients just need their paper to be read aloud. Most students spot their errors by just listening to a sentence or paragraph. Just yesterday, I had a friend read to me the last paragraph of my essay. When I have someone read my writing, I make sure she reads it aloud, not too fast but not too slowly. I do not read the text as she writes. I believe that if I read the text along with her, I’ll be listening to my internal voice reading, and not her. I’ve incorporated reading aloud with my clients in the “line by line” method Cynthia Linville talks about.

The other day I had a client who kept repeating the same errors throughout his essay. Most of the time he would catch the error the first time I read the sentence aloud. When he wouldn’t, I would have him identify parts of the sentence. For example, he had several comma splices, so I would have him identify the subject and verbs of both sentences, and I would ask him if they were complete sentences. Once he realized that both sentences were independent clauses, he would see that the comma in between them required a conjunction, or would just be substituted by a period or semicolon. I believe Linville’s strategy of having the clients mark the errors of the paragraph ahead of time is a good strategy, especially if one underlines subjects and double underlines verbs, as she mentions. This strategy, however, requires a lot of time, time I don’t have since I have to work one hour shifts because of my schedule.

When I notice a cultural difference in one’s writing or response, I usually try to incorporate those ways into my own writing. I believe one should look at many situations, stories, people, cultures, almost everything, through different lenses. I think this helps us as writers and as people. It helps strengthen beliefs one may have, but it also enlightens one to new ways of writing, new ways of learning, new ways of thinking, and new ways of being. An understanding of several cultures gives us in insight to the people of that culture, to their beliefs, their traditions, and to their ways of life. This, in my opinion, is not only key for each individual, but especially for consultants in the Writers’ Room. In a way, we are the medium that passes cultures on. We may work with someone from Nepal, see his way of writing and reasoning, and pass that on to an American we may assist later that day. This is why it is key consultants notice cultural differences and be aware of how we are distinguished culturally, yet also as a way to link each culture to another, each person to another.