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Award-Winning Writer/Tutor: Essays, Resumes, Math/NU Grad
Robert P.

5.0 (205 ratings)

544 hours tutoring

Your first lesson is backed by our Good Fit Guarantee
Hourly Rate: $75
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Response time: 22 minutes
Robert P.'s Photo

Award-Winning Writer/Tutor: Essays, Resumes, Math/NU Grad
Award-Winning Writer/Tutor: Essays, Resumes, Math/NU Grad
Robert P.

5.0 (205 ratings)

544 hours tutoring

Your first lesson is backed by our Good Fit Guarantee
5.0 (205 ratings)

544 hours tutoring

Your first lesson is backed by our Good Fit Guarantee
Meet Robert P.
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About Robert

Bio

I’ve had careers in teaching, publishing, and corporate banking. I have master’s degrees in writing and business administration and have a PMP and Six Sigma Black Belt.

Given the above, I teach what I know: writing, math/business, and career development.

I’ve taught at two colleges; written and edited for newspapers and magazines for 20 years; and just retired from Truist Financial, where I ran projects and later led operational teams.

Teaching Style:

I like to root-cause problems, then...

I’ve had careers in teaching, publishing, and corporate banking. I have master’s degrees in writing and business administration and have a PMP and Six Sigma Black Belt.

Given the above, I teach what I know: writing, math/business, and career development.

I’ve taught at two colleges; written and edited for newspapers and magazines for 20 years; and just retired from Truist Financial, where I ran projects and later led operational teams.

Teaching Style:

I like to root-cause problems, then get to solutions. So I ask questions and listen _ closely _ to what students, parents, and written works reveal about students’ needs, dislikes, and fears.

I care about whether a student is a visual, auditory, or tactile learner. And I think it’s my job to make complex ideas meaningful, to approach them in diverse ways, and to help students create good habits and break bad ones.

Reading, Writing:

I was a terrible reader as a child, constantly confused by what I read.

Eventually, using my peripheral vision (and learning to recognize grammatical units) I learned to see phrases and short clauses as meaningful clumps, not as individual words. And, eventually, having studied exposition, I learned to recognize how textbook sections were related.

How can we teach reading without writing?

Grammar, Proofreading, SAT Writing:

I proof your written work for logic, organization, punctuation, grammar, usage, and writing mechanics. (The SAT writing component tests knowledge of the last four.)

During four painful high school years, teachers used red pens to point out my lapses in these areas. College professors and newspaper editors continued the sport for the next 15 years. Eventually I caught on.

Business, Career Coaching:

I was unemployed for 10 months during the Great Recession but had informational/job interviews with 100+ people, went to weekly job-hunting classes at a non-profit networking group, and worked with two HR consultants.

After being hired, I volunteered for my networking group for four years, teaching others.

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Education

Washington & Lee University
English
Northwestern University
Masters
Virginia Commonwealth University
MBA

Policies

Schedule

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Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

Approved Subjects

Business

Business,

Business

I worked for years in publishing as a general manager with P&L experience before taking on successive managerial roles with SunTrust Bank, first in process improvement, then projects, then operations. For my project management roles, I led teams of business analysts, developers, technical writers, process engineers, risk, legal and compliance officers, and operations managers. In my SunTrust, now Truist, operations roles, I led business units in receivables, payables, and data analytics. For this last role, I used Minitab for all our statistical research. I have a master’s degree in writing from Northwestern University and an MBA from Virginia Commonwealth University. As a result, I’m particularly skilled in B-school presentations, capstone projects, research analysis, white papers, project plans, PowerPoint decks and, of course, resume review for business school graduates and executives. I retired recently from Truist but still enjoy working with students and professionals on problem-solving, risk management, marketing, process redesign, and career development.
Career Development,

Career Development

I spent four years working for a Richmond, VA, networking group, helping job seekers retool resumes, cover letters, and LinkedIn profiles; prepare for interviews; and learn job-hunting strategies. I’ve also taught a 6-week college course on career development. With these skills, I’ve helped entry-level teammates and experienced managers win jobs, especially in business, consulting, and STEM fields, including nursing. With these same skills and 20+ years of wordsmithing, I’ve helped college students win college admissions, internships, and scholarships. As a former corporate banker, I’ve hired or helped hire developers, data analysts, front-line managers, project managers, technical writers, trainers, and process engineers. As a former newspaper publisher, I’ve hired copywriters, advertising sales staff, writers, editors, photographers, and graphic artists. For mock job interviews, we’ll wrestle with behavioral questions, salary issues, and other tough topics. For admissions interviews, we’ll drill on the basics: learning to relax, preparation, using the first 5 minutes to your advantage, asking great questions. As for resumes, there is no perfect-resume template, no ideal cookie-cutter formula. The right resume for you depends on the job you’re seeking, your seniority, your selling points, who your readers are, and what you know or don’t know about the hiring manager’s needs. I’ll study your resume, thoughtfully, recognizing from media-funded eye-movement research what readers typically don’t read and don’t want to read; and recognizing, too, that recruiters, according to Indeed, spend an average of 7 seconds reviewing a resume. I have master’s degrees in business and writing, and where the two intersect, I’m at my strongest.
Marketing,

Marketing

I have an MBA with a marketing concentration, and during my career, I’ve marketed advertising design services, magazines, and new-media websites. As a publisher and marketing director in North Carolina, I was responsible for budgeting and top-and bottom-line fiscal results for my news business; responsible for content development, advertising sales, distribution, and production; and responsible for the marketing and promotions mix for my brand and for strategic and tactical marketing plans for my products and services. During my first year, IBDA for my business inched up 2.2%; in my second year, without cutting staff, it jumped 35.6%. The following year, I launched a campaign in South Carolina that helped a different news company’s online ad sales grow nearly 40% by creating Facebook and Twitter pages, slideshows, forums, videos, and other content to drive website traffic. That year, average monthly visits to our news sites grew by nearly 50%. The year after, page views and uniques both rose 42%.
Project Management

Project Management

I recently retired from Truist Financial as a project manager after a decade. Along the way, I helped to hire project managers, process engineers, developers, and data analysts. I’ve led cross-functional teams that included 20+ members and worked on projects that lasted from 3 months to two years. I’ve remediated 12 financial audits and cleaned up a $2 MM backlog. I’ve gathered requirements, defined scope, and created WBS; drove reporting and coding requests for KPI/KRIs, vendor scorecards, dashboards, and reconciliations; reported status; mapped processes and performed associated analysis; held SMEs, technical writers, analysts, and issue owners responsible. I have master’s degrees in writing and business administration.

Corporate Training

Business,

Business

I worked for years in publishing as a general manager with P&L experience before taking on successive managerial roles with SunTrust Bank, first in process improvement, then projects, then operations. For my project management roles, I led teams of business analysts, developers, technical writers, process engineers, risk, legal and compliance officers, and operations managers. In my SunTrust, now Truist, operations roles, I led business units in receivables, payables, and data analytics. For this last role, I used Minitab for all our statistical research. I have a master’s degree in writing from Northwestern University and an MBA from Virginia Commonwealth University. As a result, I’m particularly skilled in B-school presentations, capstone projects, research analysis, white papers, project plans, PowerPoint decks and, of course, resume review for business school graduates and executives. I retired recently from Truist but still enjoy working with students and professionals on problem-solving, risk management, marketing, process redesign, and career development.
Career Development,

Career Development

I spent four years working for a Richmond, VA, networking group, helping job seekers retool resumes, cover letters, and LinkedIn profiles; prepare for interviews; and learn job-hunting strategies. I’ve also taught a 6-week college course on career development. With these skills, I’ve helped entry-level teammates and experienced managers win jobs, especially in business, consulting, and STEM fields, including nursing. With these same skills and 20+ years of wordsmithing, I’ve helped college students win college admissions, internships, and scholarships. As a former corporate banker, I’ve hired or helped hire developers, data analysts, front-line managers, project managers, technical writers, trainers, and process engineers. As a former newspaper publisher, I’ve hired copywriters, advertising sales staff, writers, editors, photographers, and graphic artists. For mock job interviews, we’ll wrestle with behavioral questions, salary issues, and other tough topics. For admissions interviews, we’ll drill on the basics: learning to relax, preparation, using the first 5 minutes to your advantage, asking great questions. As for resumes, there is no perfect-resume template, no ideal cookie-cutter formula. The right resume for you depends on the job you’re seeking, your seniority, your selling points, who your readers are, and what you know or don’t know about the hiring manager’s needs. I’ll study your resume, thoughtfully, recognizing from media-funded eye-movement research what readers typically don’t read and don’t want to read; and recognizing, too, that recruiters, according to Indeed, spend an average of 7 seconds reviewing a resume. I have master’s degrees in business and writing, and where the two intersect, I’m at my strongest.
Grammar,

Grammar

I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in writing, taught at two colleges, and proofread students, jobseekers, and professional writers copy for two decades. I teach grammar, punctuation, writing mechanics, and usage/diction as these are all different but important. In grammar, we focus on case, agreement, fragments and comma splices, verb forms, and sentence sense. But there’s obviously more to good writing than just grammar. To my mind, what’s important in teaching these staples of good writing is that they make sense for students, as much as possible. At least, that’s my aim. And when our good-writing guides or rules don’t make sense _which happens _ we commit them to memory. Or while we might not remember a rule, we remember that there’s “some kind of rule” about, say, lie versus lay, and we Google it.
Proofreading,

Proofreading

I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in writing, taught at two colleges, and proofread students, jobseekers, and professional writers copy for two decades. I’ve proofed dissertations, capstone projects, resumes and cover letters, theses, research papers, white papers, persuasive essays, personal essays, personal statements, literature reviews, manuscripts, editorials, op-ed pieces, and news articles. In proofing copy, I read for content, logic, organization, grammar, punctuation, usage, wordiness, spelling, formatting, faulty parallels, fragments, shifts in tense, mood, voice, or person, and other mechanics.
ESL/ESOL, Japanese, Spanish

Elementary Education

Grammar,

Grammar

I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in writing, taught at two colleges, and proofread students, jobseekers, and professional writers copy for two decades. I teach grammar, punctuation, writing mechanics, and usage/diction as these are all different but important. In grammar, we focus on case, agreement, fragments and comma splices, verb forms, and sentence sense. But there’s obviously more to good writing than just grammar. To my mind, what’s important in teaching these staples of good writing is that they make sense for students, as much as possible. At least, that’s my aim. And when our good-writing guides or rules don’t make sense _which happens _ we commit them to memory. Or while we might not remember a rule, we remember that there’s “some kind of rule” about, say, lie versus lay, and we Google it.
Homeschool,

Homeschool

I can work with homeschooled elementary students on compositions, reading and math. I have an English degree from college and followed it with a master’s. I also have an MBA, which of course involved a great deal of math. I can teach grammar, punctuation, vocabulary, reading, but where I really excel is helping students mine and recognize their best thoughts, best ideas, as they ready the groundwork for their stories, book reports, essays, and other compositions. I have two personal essays on my full profile if they help you make your decision. Also, if you’d like to interview me, I can easily set up a quick meeting for us in Wyzant’s online demo room. Thank you for considering me for a homeschool role.
Reading,

Reading

Have you ever watched the eyes of a really good reader, moving left-right, left-right, left-right down a page? It’s like watching windshield wipers slowly descending. I didn’t read that way, not in high school or college. Rather than slowly advancing down a page, my eyes advanced and then retreated. I’d read seven words, say, and then revisit three. It took me forever to read a textbook chapter or novel, and even then my comprehension was poor. In my last term in college, I took a one-day speed reading class. In it, students learned techniques for skimming and using our peripheral vision to take in meaningful clumps of words, not just individual words. I didn’t suddenly become a better, faster reader. That took work, but I began that day to appreciate that we don’t have to read all books, articles, and letters the same way. And that not all words in a sentence, paragraph, or article are of equal importance and that in many cases we can skim or skip entire sentences and paragraphs, with little worry. If you’d like to work with me, I’ll teach you what I learned over the years about improving reading comprehension and speed _ from teachers and tutors, from my research, and from years of practice.
Vocabulary

Vocabulary

Before launching a series of vocabulary lessons, I want to talk to the child and a parent to gauge how the student learns best. (I will assume here that the student is young.) Assessment questions will include these and others: 1. Which helps the student most in learning new words _ hearing, seeing, or writing them? 2. Does the student like to read? If not, why not? What book is the student reading now, in which language? What are the child’s interests? 3. What television shows does the child watch, in which language? Which language is spoken at home principally? 4. Do any of the student’s friends have extensive vocabularies? We can’t teach children new words in a vacuum, without context. Words have denotations and connotations, equally important. This is why students are forever asking about new vocabulary, rightfully: “Put it in a sentence.” My writing and teaching credentials are tucked into my full profile at Wyzant. Beyond that experience, I studied Spanish for four years in high school and my wife is Japanese, from Nerima.

English

English,

English

Parental requests for English help often detail student’s composition, reading or vocabulary needs, sometimes all three. Parents can access my qualifications for these in the Approved Subjects section of my full profile by clicking on the hypertexted links for each. In short, I’ve tutored all three subjects and find a great deal of overlap in my lessons. Teaching writing students how to create seamless transition between sentences and paragraphs, for example, turns them into better readers of others’ prose. I have college and graduate degrees in writing, have taught in two colleges, and wrote and edited essays, editorials, and other articles for newspapers and magazines for two decades. I’ve tutored students in grade school, high school, and college on writing pieces from concept through finished work. Where I really excel is helping students _ no matter their age _ mine and recognize their best thoughts, best ideas, as they ready the groundwork for their compositions.
Grammar,

Grammar

I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in writing, taught at two colleges, and proofread students, jobseekers, and professional writers copy for two decades. I teach grammar, punctuation, writing mechanics, and usage/diction as these are all different but important. In grammar, we focus on case, agreement, fragments and comma splices, verb forms, and sentence sense. But there’s obviously more to good writing than just grammar. To my mind, what’s important in teaching these staples of good writing is that they make sense for students, as much as possible. At least, that’s my aim. And when our good-writing guides or rules don’t make sense _which happens _ we commit them to memory. Or while we might not remember a rule, we remember that there’s “some kind of rule” about, say, lie versus lay, and we Google it.
Proofreading,

Proofreading

I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in writing, taught at two colleges, and proofread students, jobseekers, and professional writers copy for two decades. I’ve proofed dissertations, capstone projects, resumes and cover letters, theses, research papers, white papers, persuasive essays, personal essays, personal statements, literature reviews, manuscripts, editorials, op-ed pieces, and news articles. In proofing copy, I read for content, logic, organization, grammar, punctuation, usage, wordiness, spelling, formatting, faulty parallels, fragments, shifts in tense, mood, voice, or person, and other mechanics.
Reading,

Reading

Have you ever watched the eyes of a really good reader, moving left-right, left-right, left-right down a page? It’s like watching windshield wipers slowly descending. I didn’t read that way, not in high school or college. Rather than slowly advancing down a page, my eyes advanced and then retreated. I’d read seven words, say, and then revisit three. It took me forever to read a textbook chapter or novel, and even then my comprehension was poor. In my last term in college, I took a one-day speed reading class. In it, students learned techniques for skimming and using our peripheral vision to take in meaningful clumps of words, not just individual words. I didn’t suddenly become a better, faster reader. That took work, but I began that day to appreciate that we don’t have to read all books, articles, and letters the same way. And that not all words in a sentence, paragraph, or article are of equal importance and that in many cases we can skim or skip entire sentences and paragraphs, with little worry. If you’d like to work with me, I’ll teach you what I learned over the years about improving reading comprehension and speed _ from teachers and tutors, from my research, and from years of practice.
SAT Writing,

SAT Writing

I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in writing, taught at two colleges, and have helped high school students prepare for the SAT’s writing component. The SAT’s writing questions test your knowledge of topic development and organization; punctuation; grammar, including sentence structure; and usage, which is diction or word choice. The test gives you passages with underlined words, phrases and clauses and asks if they need to be changed or not, based on your knowledge of standard English rules and logical constructions. What’s key in revisiting these good-writing rules or guides now is to understand why many of them make sense. And when they don’t make sense _ which happens _ we need to commit them to memory or at least recognize in questions potential grammatical or developmental pitfalls. In any event, these are areas where I excel. For two decades I was a teacher and writer/editor at major metro newspapers and magazines. In the SAT writing section, the authors are asking you to be a good editor.
Vocabulary,

Vocabulary

Before launching a series of vocabulary lessons, I want to talk to the child and a parent to gauge how the student learns best. (I will assume here that the student is young.) Assessment questions will include these and others: 1. Which helps the student most in learning new words _ hearing, seeing, or writing them? 2. Does the student like to read? If not, why not? What book is the student reading now, in which language? What are the child’s interests? 3. What television shows does the child watch, in which language? Which language is spoken at home principally? 4. Do any of the student’s friends have extensive vocabularies? We can’t teach children new words in a vacuum, without context. Words have denotations and connotations, equally important. This is why students are forever asking about new vocabulary, rightfully: “Put it in a sentence.” My writing and teaching credentials are tucked into my full profile at Wyzant. Beyond that experience, I studied Spanish for four years in high school and my wife is Japanese, from Nerima.
Writing,

Writing

Over the years, I’ve tutored students writing persuasive and personal essays, college entrance essays and personal statements, research papers, literature analysis, resumes, and other compositions. I’ve tutored students in grade school, high school, and college on writing pieces from concept through finished work – including freewriting exercises, topic exploration, outlines, organization, rough drafts, proofreading, and rewrites. I’ve taught at two colleges; wrote and edited essays, editorials, and other articles for newspapers and magazines for two decades; and coached technical writers and analysts to write clearly and concisely at Truist Financial. Where I really excel is helping students _ no matter their age _ generate and recognize their best thoughts, their strongest points or arguments, and then organize them logically, strategically. I find that immensely rewarding. Writing does NOT have to be frightening or impenetrable. I have writing degrees from Washington & Lee and Northwestern universities.
ESL/ESOL, Literature

Homeschool

English,

English

Parental requests for English help often detail student’s composition, reading or vocabulary needs, sometimes all three. Parents can access my qualifications for these in the Approved Subjects section of my full profile by clicking on the hypertexted links for each. In short, I’ve tutored all three subjects and find a great deal of overlap in my lessons. Teaching writing students how to create seamless transition between sentences and paragraphs, for example, turns them into better readers of others’ prose. I have college and graduate degrees in writing, have taught in two colleges, and wrote and edited essays, editorials, and other articles for newspapers and magazines for two decades. I’ve tutored students in grade school, high school, and college on writing pieces from concept through finished work. Where I really excel is helping students _ no matter their age _ mine and recognize their best thoughts, best ideas, as they ready the groundwork for their compositions.
Reading,

Reading

Have you ever watched the eyes of a really good reader, moving left-right, left-right, left-right down a page? It’s like watching windshield wipers slowly descending. I didn’t read that way, not in high school or college. Rather than slowly advancing down a page, my eyes advanced and then retreated. I’d read seven words, say, and then revisit three. It took me forever to read a textbook chapter or novel, and even then my comprehension was poor. In my last term in college, I took a one-day speed reading class. In it, students learned techniques for skimming and using our peripheral vision to take in meaningful clumps of words, not just individual words. I didn’t suddenly become a better, faster reader. That took work, but I began that day to appreciate that we don’t have to read all books, articles, and letters the same way. And that not all words in a sentence, paragraph, or article are of equal importance and that in many cases we can skim or skip entire sentences and paragraphs, with little worry. If you’d like to work with me, I’ll teach you what I learned over the years about improving reading comprehension and speed _ from teachers and tutors, from my research, and from years of practice.
Writing,

Writing

Over the years, I’ve tutored students writing persuasive and personal essays, college entrance essays and personal statements, research papers, literature analysis, resumes, and other compositions. I’ve tutored students in grade school, high school, and college on writing pieces from concept through finished work – including freewriting exercises, topic exploration, outlines, organization, rough drafts, proofreading, and rewrites. I’ve taught at two colleges; wrote and edited essays, editorials, and other articles for newspapers and magazines for two decades; and coached technical writers and analysts to write clearly and concisely at Truist Financial. Where I really excel is helping students _ no matter their age _ generate and recognize their best thoughts, their strongest points or arguments, and then organize them logically, strategically. I find that immensely rewarding. Writing does NOT have to be frightening or impenetrable. I have writing degrees from Washington & Lee and Northwestern universities.
ESL/ESOL, Japanese, Spanish

Language

ESL/ESOL, Japanese, Spanish

Most Popular

English,

English

Parental requests for English help often detail student’s composition, reading or vocabulary needs, sometimes all three. Parents can access my qualifications for these in the Approved Subjects section of my full profile by clicking on the hypertexted links for each. In short, I’ve tutored all three subjects and find a great deal of overlap in my lessons. Teaching writing students how to create seamless transition between sentences and paragraphs, for example, turns them into better readers of others’ prose. I have college and graduate degrees in writing, have taught in two colleges, and wrote and edited essays, editorials, and other articles for newspapers and magazines for two decades. I’ve tutored students in grade school, high school, and college on writing pieces from concept through finished work. Where I really excel is helping students _ no matter their age _ mine and recognize their best thoughts, best ideas, as they ready the groundwork for their compositions.
Reading,

Reading

Have you ever watched the eyes of a really good reader, moving left-right, left-right, left-right down a page? It’s like watching windshield wipers slowly descending. I didn’t read that way, not in high school or college. Rather than slowly advancing down a page, my eyes advanced and then retreated. I’d read seven words, say, and then revisit three. It took me forever to read a textbook chapter or novel, and even then my comprehension was poor. In my last term in college, I took a one-day speed reading class. In it, students learned techniques for skimming and using our peripheral vision to take in meaningful clumps of words, not just individual words. I didn’t suddenly become a better, faster reader. That took work, but I began that day to appreciate that we don’t have to read all books, articles, and letters the same way. And that not all words in a sentence, paragraph, or article are of equal importance and that in many cases we can skim or skip entire sentences and paragraphs, with little worry. If you’d like to work with me, I’ll teach you what I learned over the years about improving reading comprehension and speed _ from teachers and tutors, from my research, and from years of practice.
Writing,

Writing

Over the years, I’ve tutored students writing persuasive and personal essays, college entrance essays and personal statements, research papers, literature analysis, resumes, and other compositions. I’ve tutored students in grade school, high school, and college on writing pieces from concept through finished work – including freewriting exercises, topic exploration, outlines, organization, rough drafts, proofreading, and rewrites. I’ve taught at two colleges; wrote and edited essays, editorials, and other articles for newspapers and magazines for two decades; and coached technical writers and analysts to write clearly and concisely at Truist Financial. Where I really excel is helping students _ no matter their age _ generate and recognize their best thoughts, their strongest points or arguments, and then organize them logically, strategically. I find that immensely rewarding. Writing does NOT have to be frightening or impenetrable. I have writing degrees from Washington & Lee and Northwestern universities.
ESL/ESOL, Japanese, Spanish

Other

College Counseling,

College Counseling

Contact me if you have a rough draft or no idea where to begin writing the essay. My job is to help you recognize your story and mine the details, anecdotes, and insights to enrich it. I have undergraduate and graduate writing degrees from Washington & Lee and Northwestern universities, respectively, and wrote and edited essays, editorials, and human-interest stories for newspapers and magazines for two decades. I also have an MBA, with a marketing concentration, and completed training with Pacific Northwest Association for College Admission Counseling (PNACAC). Over the years, I also have taught at two colleges and helped dozens of students in Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas tailor their essays/personal statements/statements of purpose for college and graduate schools. Typically, students find these essays fall into one of four categories, except for specific prompts, but we’ll get into that when we meet. Many of my students have been accepted into target and reach schools including Duke, Northwestern, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, Bucknell, George Washington, and Wake Forest. For more details about me, please see my hypertext links below for writing, grammar, vocabulary, proofreading, career development (think admissions interview preparation) and marketing.
Marketing,

Marketing

I have an MBA with a marketing concentration, and during my career, I’ve marketed advertising design services, magazines, and new-media websites. As a publisher and marketing director in North Carolina, I was responsible for budgeting and top-and bottom-line fiscal results for my news business; responsible for content development, advertising sales, distribution, and production; and responsible for the marketing and promotions mix for my brand and for strategic and tactical marketing plans for my products and services. During my first year, IBDA for my business inched up 2.2%; in my second year, without cutting staff, it jumped 35.6%. The following year, I launched a campaign in South Carolina that helped a different news company’s online ad sales grow nearly 40% by creating Facebook and Twitter pages, slideshows, forums, videos, and other content to drive website traffic. That year, average monthly visits to our news sites grew by nearly 50%. The year after, page views and uniques both rose 42%.
ESL/ESOL

Sports/Recreation

Baseball

Baseball

I was a shortstop during my high school years, then later helped coach two of my son’s travel ball teams. The thinking when I was playing ball was that if your mph throwing speed was in the high 80s, you could play college ball. Well, at 18 I was throwing 87 mph, but my throwing arm was starting to hurt and the baseball colleges I was interested in weren’t interested in me. In any event, I’m happy to share the arm-strengthening tools and regimen I used when I was playing and coaching. And, of course, you can buy a good speed gun today without breaking the bank.

Summer

GED,

GED

Getting your GED is really about the language arts and math components. If you have those mastered, you are well on your way to passing the test. In teaching GED, I like to concentrate first on reading/writing for language arts, including the essay test. (As for the essay, I wrote editorials, essays, and other news articles under daily newspaper deadlines for almost two decades, so I have an assortment of tricks I share.) After language arts, I like to knock out the social studies and science components, then finish with math, so it’s still fresh when you take the test. I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in writing and have hypertext links on my full profile for grammar, vocabulary, and writing. I also have a master’s in business administration, which is a math heavy discipline. I enjoy teaching GED as nearly all the students I’ve had over the years were serious about getting the certificate for career advancement, recognizing that the return on investment was worth it.
Reading,

Reading

Have you ever watched the eyes of a really good reader, moving left-right, left-right, left-right down a page? It’s like watching windshield wipers slowly descending. I didn’t read that way, not in high school or college. Rather than slowly advancing down a page, my eyes advanced and then retreated. I’d read seven words, say, and then revisit three. It took me forever to read a textbook chapter or novel, and even then my comprehension was poor. In my last term in college, I took a one-day speed reading class. In it, students learned techniques for skimming and using our peripheral vision to take in meaningful clumps of words, not just individual words. I didn’t suddenly become a better, faster reader. That took work, but I began that day to appreciate that we don’t have to read all books, articles, and letters the same way. And that not all words in a sentence, paragraph, or article are of equal importance and that in many cases we can skim or skip entire sentences and paragraphs, with little worry. If you’d like to work with me, I’ll teach you what I learned over the years about improving reading comprehension and speed _ from teachers and tutors, from my research, and from years of practice.
Writing,

Writing

Over the years, I’ve tutored students writing persuasive and personal essays, college entrance essays and personal statements, research papers, literature analysis, resumes, and other compositions. I’ve tutored students in grade school, high school, and college on writing pieces from concept through finished work – including freewriting exercises, topic exploration, outlines, organization, rough drafts, proofreading, and rewrites. I’ve taught at two colleges; wrote and edited essays, editorials, and other articles for newspapers and magazines for two decades; and coached technical writers and analysts to write clearly and concisely at Truist Financial. Where I really excel is helping students _ no matter their age _ generate and recognize their best thoughts, their strongest points or arguments, and then organize them logically, strategically. I find that immensely rewarding. Writing does NOT have to be frightening or impenetrable. I have writing degrees from Washington & Lee and Northwestern universities.
ESL/ESOL, Japanese, Spanish

Test Preparation

Career Development,

Career Development

I spent four years working for a Richmond, VA, networking group, helping job seekers retool resumes, cover letters, and LinkedIn profiles; prepare for interviews; and learn job-hunting strategies. I’ve also taught a 6-week college course on career development. With these skills, I’ve helped entry-level teammates and experienced managers win jobs, especially in business, consulting, and STEM fields, including nursing. With these same skills and 20+ years of wordsmithing, I’ve helped college students win college admissions, internships, and scholarships. As a former corporate banker, I’ve hired or helped hire developers, data analysts, front-line managers, project managers, technical writers, trainers, and process engineers. As a former newspaper publisher, I’ve hired copywriters, advertising sales staff, writers, editors, photographers, and graphic artists. For mock job interviews, we’ll wrestle with behavioral questions, salary issues, and other tough topics. For admissions interviews, we’ll drill on the basics: learning to relax, preparation, using the first 5 minutes to your advantage, asking great questions. As for resumes, there is no perfect-resume template, no ideal cookie-cutter formula. The right resume for you depends on the job you’re seeking, your seniority, your selling points, who your readers are, and what you know or don’t know about the hiring manager’s needs. I’ll study your resume, thoughtfully, recognizing from media-funded eye-movement research what readers typically don’t read and don’t want to read; and recognizing, too, that recruiters, according to Indeed, spend an average of 7 seconds reviewing a resume. I have master’s degrees in business and writing, and where the two intersect, I’m at my strongest.
College Counseling,

College Counseling

Contact me if you have a rough draft or no idea where to begin writing the essay. My job is to help you recognize your story and mine the details, anecdotes, and insights to enrich it. I have undergraduate and graduate writing degrees from Washington & Lee and Northwestern universities, respectively, and wrote and edited essays, editorials, and human-interest stories for newspapers and magazines for two decades. I also have an MBA, with a marketing concentration, and completed training with Pacific Northwest Association for College Admission Counseling (PNACAC). Over the years, I also have taught at two colleges and helped dozens of students in Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas tailor their essays/personal statements/statements of purpose for college and graduate schools. Typically, students find these essays fall into one of four categories, except for specific prompts, but we’ll get into that when we meet. Many of my students have been accepted into target and reach schools including Duke, Northwestern, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, Bucknell, George Washington, and Wake Forest. For more details about me, please see my hypertext links below for writing, grammar, vocabulary, proofreading, career development (think admissions interview preparation) and marketing.
GED,

GED

Getting your GED is really about the language arts and math components. If you have those mastered, you are well on your way to passing the test. In teaching GED, I like to concentrate first on reading/writing for language arts, including the essay test. (As for the essay, I wrote editorials, essays, and other news articles under daily newspaper deadlines for almost two decades, so I have an assortment of tricks I share.) After language arts, I like to knock out the social studies and science components, then finish with math, so it’s still fresh when you take the test. I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in writing and have hypertext links on my full profile for grammar, vocabulary, and writing. I also have a master’s in business administration, which is a math heavy discipline. I enjoy teaching GED as nearly all the students I’ve had over the years were serious about getting the certificate for career advancement, recognizing that the return on investment was worth it.
SAT Writing

SAT Writing

I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in writing, taught at two colleges, and have helped high school students prepare for the SAT’s writing component. The SAT’s writing questions test your knowledge of topic development and organization; punctuation; grammar, including sentence structure; and usage, which is diction or word choice. The test gives you passages with underlined words, phrases and clauses and asks if they need to be changed or not, based on your knowledge of standard English rules and logical constructions. What’s key in revisiting these good-writing rules or guides now is to understand why many of them make sense. And when they don’t make sense _ which happens _ we need to commit them to memory or at least recognize in questions potential grammatical or developmental pitfalls. In any event, these are areas where I excel. For two decades I was a teacher and writer/editor at major metro newspapers and magazines. In the SAT writing section, the authors are asking you to be a good editor.

Examples of Expertise

Robert has provided examples of their subject expertise by answering 1 question submitted by students on Wyzant’s Ask an Expert.

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Ratings and Reviews

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Reviews

Ivy League Admissions Essays: Creative, Insightful, Great tutor.

Bob helped me unearth and organize details from my life to create two powerful essays. I told him that it couldn’t be done, that my life was pretty ordinary, even privileged. But with his questioning and prodding, I wound up remembering small details that I thought I’d long forgotten, and soon enough, I had rough drafts. Afterward, he helped me polish and polish the results. I couldn’t be happier.

Eric, 10 lessons with Robert

Knowledgeable and patient

(Chrissy) My daughter is learning a lot from Robert, he is knowledgeable in anything she wants to ask him about. He provides good updates on what they covered each time they have a meeting and has very good suggestions. (Megan) Robert helps greatly to understand both the importance of speed reading, and comprehension. Something I struggle with most is reading quickly, but efficiently, and Robert has improved my personal reading and writing skills immensely.

Chrissy, 32 lessons with Robert

Effective and talented tutor

During just two sessions, Robert taught my son to get into mindset on writing on any topic. During last lesson, Robert provided constructive feedback on two essays my son has been working on, including a science essay. My son and myself are extremely impressed. I wish I have found Robert earlier!

Kate, 3 lessons with Robert

Knowledgeable and flexible

Robert helped my son, presently in his freshman year of college organize and complete an argumentative style paper for his writing, II course. His help gave my son the tools needed to complete this paper and future college writing papers. We will most definitely and plan to use his service again. Thank you!

Ayana, 2 lessons with Robert

Very through editor and a great teacher

We worked on an essay I had for a grad school supplement. Bob was so patient and insightful while guiding me through my paper. He was very careful and thorough when correcting my work, teaching me what makes someone a great writer while making me laugh the whole way through our session. Knowledgeable in journalism and business and was able to help me answer all necessary questions with confidence.

Hanna, 1 lesson with Robert

The best!

Robert helped in revising my essay for a scholarship grant. Always quick to respond and makes himself available. I had a few sessions with him last year in the summer and aced my classes. He is my go-to tutor.

John Paul, 3 lessons with Robert

He is so patient!

It was important to me to find someone who would be patient with my learning process and this was something Bob was able to do. He was kind and very good at explaining concepts in a way that I could clearly understand. He is a wealth of knowledge and I feel so fortunate to have found him to help me improve my writing skills.

Molly, 2 lessons with Robert

APA

During our session, he demonstrated exceptional competence in APA citation and referencing. Additionally, the next session will be on the 7th, it is an assignment project.

Lau, 1 lesson with Robert

Knowledgeable and Clear

Robert has been my tutor for a little over half a year now and he has helped me greatly in my English assignments and general understanding of English composition. Whenever I present him with a single sentence outlining my upcoming major English assignment, Robert dissects it, guiding me through the process of understanding and addressing the task at hand. He assists me in formulating a structured outline and a strategic plan to tackle the assignment effectively. Upon completing the first draft, Robert goes beyond mere editing; he explains the reasoning behind each edit, helping me avoid similar mistakes in the future. In summary, Robert stands out as the most articulate and supportive tutor I've ever worked with, consistently delivering clarity and invaluable assistance.

Cole, 25 lessons with Robert

Very detailed and knowledgeable.

I appreciate his honest feedback and attention to detail. He prides himself on making sure you receive the best guidance to succeed. I recommend him to those seeking to enhance their writing skills.

Reeshemah, 1 lesson with Robert
Hourly Rate: $75
Response time: 22 minutes
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