One-on-One Appointments

These appointments take place in Wetmore Hall in rooms WE60A, WE60B, WE60K, and WE61. Enter at 300 Huron Street, go down the stairs, and turn left.

Because many students, faculty, and family members are immune-compromised and we are committed to keeping everyone safe, we ask that students wear masks when meeting with us in person in our small offices (health, disability, and religious exemptions aside). Not to worry if you don’t have one; we can give you one.  Offices are set up so that distancing is possible, so please bring a laptop. You are also welcome to bring two hard copies of your draft.

In cases of last minute illnesses within your household, in-person appointments may be transformed to online appointments. Email newcollege.writingcentre@utoronto.ca by 9:00 am on the day of your appointment to arrange this. We ask that students do not meet with us in person if they or their household members are ill with anything that could be contagious. We are always happy to meet online in these instances.

These appointments involve live video conferencing (or you can turn the video off and just have an audio conversation), a shared document workspace where you can interact with the text and your instructor, and a chat window. You can have a conversation with your instructor, write in session, receive written and oral feedback, and re-direct the session toward your questions as they arise. You’ll want to hold these appointments on your computer, not on your phone. If you are working on a desktop without a webcam and mic, no problem: leave us a note in the comments letting us know you’d like for us to phone you instead.

Accessing your online appointment is very easy! Just click on your appointment and click on the red text that says “Join online consultation.” You may need to give the platform permission to use your camera and microphone. You can always turn these off later by clicking on the icons in the appointment window. If you have any trouble connecting with us through our booking system, see our troubleshooting guide.

Asynchronous appointments are best for students who need them for accessibility reasons (e.g., time zone issues, unstable internet, computer access, learning differences). We highly recommend synchronous appointments (in-person or online) for better learning and teaching in most contexts. Asynchronous appointments are only for students who have a draft or partial draft of their essay finished. Expect your feedback by about 10 pm on the day that you booked your appointment. Please note that we do not edit your papers.

The following students are eligible to use our centre:

• Students registered at New College
• Students taking courses in a New College Program. These students must bring work from a course in a New College program, specifically courses starting with the code NEW, AFR, CAR, CSE, BPM, WGS or HMB. We also work with students on some joint courses (JNR301, JHN323, JLN327, JQR360, JNH350, JLN427, JNS450, HAJ453 and JHA410).
• In the winter semester only, students working on papers in IFP100.
• New College students and students minoring or majoring in a New College program may book one appointment per semester for application materials, as per the admissions letters policy below.

If you are not eligible to use the New College Writing Centre, find information about writing instruction in your home College or Faculty here.

Our booking system is easy to use. Just click on any available appointment time (in white) that you’d like to book. You may reserve one appointment per week. Out of fairness to all students, you may only have three appointments at a time scheduled.

If you have courses at other colleges and can’t find an appointment to meet your needs here, you may log out and then click on the link to any other centre in Quercus.

[Embedded video] See a visual on making an appointment. To watch the video with audio captions, use this link.

Making appointments

The login button on our home page will take you to a standard UTOR login page, which will require your UTORid and password. We are a busy site: book well in advance and leave lots of time before your paper is due to apply what you learn in your sessions. Every time you make or cancel an appointment, you will receive an email confirmation. If you are uncertain about your upcoming appointments, you can check them in the booking system.

Communicating with us

The reservation system communicates with you via e-mail or text. The system will send you an e-mail notification of each appointment you book or cancel. It will also send you reminder e-mails and waitlist notifications. You must use your utoronto email address to use our system.

If you wish to receive reminders and waiting list notifications by text rather than email, make sure to update your profile to include your mobile number and carrier. If you want to see us during the day as a drop-in, we’ll call you at your mobile phone # as long as you entered it when you registered. You may add it to your profile at any time.

Canceling appointments

Please cancel appointments at least a full twenty-four hours in advance. Timely cancellation makes appointments available to others who are waiting. To cancel an appointment, login to your account on our homepage. Then click on “My appointments” in the Welcome tab to the left.

Our booking system sends out appointment confirmations and reminders by email and text. If you not do not receive reminders two days before your appointments, please try the following steps.

Step 1

Check your junk/spam folders for both your email and/or your phone (if you signed up for text messages). If you do find the messages there, mark them as safe. If not, go to step 2.

Step 2

Check your reminder settings by going to the welcome menu in the booking system (‘Welcome [First name]’) and selecting ‘Update Profile and Email Options’. Ensure that your email address is written correctly in the system.

Under ‘Email Preferences’, check that you have not opted out of any emails or messages that you want to get. If you did, change the setting and click ‘Save Changes’ at the bottom of the page.

Step 3

If you signed up for text messages, send a test text message to make sure the text messaging works.

On the same ‘Update Profile and Email Options’ page (see step 2), you can sign up for text messages. If you did, you will NOT receive reminder or waitlist emails. However, if you did not test the text messaging you may not receive text messages either.

Go to the bottom of the page, to the box that says ‘Text Messaging Preferences’. After entering your phone number and carrier, click ‘Save Changes’ and a test link will appear below the phone number you just entered. Click it to send a test message.

Step 4

If you do not receive a test text message, check whether the information you entered is correct. If it is correct and you still don’t receive a text message, your carrier may not be supported. Remove your text messaging information and click ‘Save Changes’ to receive emails instead.

You may reserve and hold three appointments at a time, but only one per calendar week. In the summer sessions, you may book two appointments per week (for a maximum of 10 over the summer).

If you already have an appointment booked in a particular week, you may be able to drop-in for a second appointment to any time that remains unreserved. Priority for drop-in appointments is given to students who have not yet had an appointment that term or week.)

You may book appointments only for yourself. We will see only the student who has booked the appointment. We will consider the appointment “missed” if the student who booked it does not use it.

If you are more than 15 minutes late for an appointment, we may need to give the appointment to another student who is waiting. Penalties for missed appointments are erased at the beginning of the fall and the summer terms.

No single piece of writing should be brought to writing centre appointments more than three times.

If you miss two appointments during the fall/winter or summer term or if you late-cancel three times, you risk having your writing centre privileges temporarily suspended. Please cancel at least twenty-four hours in advance to give students on the waiting list a chance to book; cancelling within five hours of your appointment counts as a late cancellation. You will be unable to cancel your appointment within 30 minutes of the appointment time.

If you’d like to meet with us about reinstating your writing centre privileges, please email us at newcollege.writingcentre@utoronto.ca. We will be happy to talk with you about helping you manage your appointments.

These policies help us maximize our resources for all students and make as many appointments as possible available to all.

Please bring your student card to each appointment.

You may reserve one appointment per academic term in our regular Writing Centre schedule to address graduate and professional schools application materials, such as personal statements. Do not book a second appointment for application materials. If you do, it will be cancelled or counted as missed. For additional help after your one appointment, you may bring these documents to the Writing Room or to last-minute drop-in appointments. We look at application materials for New College students and students in New College programs (NEW, AFR, CAR, CSE, BPM, WGS, HMB).

We do not look at job application or internship application materials (resumes and cover letters) at the Writing Centre. Take a look at the Career Centre for useful advice pages and workshops to help you with the job search.

You can reserve one appointment per academic term in our regular Writing Centre schedule to get help developing writing skills for admissions tests. You may also bring this work to drop-in appointments and the Writing Room.

In the 2022-23 school year, we will work with you online and via our computer screens. Some instructors may prefer to work with hard copies.

One or more members of a group may book an appointment to work on a group project. If you are not the author/s of some text that you bring, we will help you develop questions and editorial strategies that you can take back to the group. The person who books the appointment must attend the session and be eligible to book (a New College student or a student from another college working on a group assignment for a New College program course). Group appointments in 2021/22 are online only.

Use the waiting list if you can’t get an appointment when you need one. Once you enter the booking system, WC Online, click on the waiting list link for any day you’d like to see us. You have the option of selecting a time range or a specific instructor. The system will notify you by email or text if an appointment becomes available. You may easily delete yourself from any list.

The reservation system notifies all students on the waitlist when an appointment comes available through cancellation. If you enter the booking system and find that there are no appointments on the specified date, this means that the appointment has already been booked by another student.

If you are looking for a last-minute drop-in appointment, put your name on the waitlist for that day. When an appointment becomes available, we’ll phone you or email you, often at the very last minute. Respond to the email address your instructor has written in the body of the email, and they will book you in if they still have space. There is no limit on the number of drop-in appointments a student can have.

Our drop-in writers’ space, The Writing Room, is open three afternoons a week. Come meet with a writing instructor or just hang out and write.