Writing Centre

Overview

One-on-one consultations are available for graduate students who seek individualized assistance with their writing. In these 40-minute sessions, trained instructors work with you to improve your capacity to plan, write, and revise your academic assignments. Instructors do not edit for you; they teach you to revise and edit your own work.

The GCAC Writing Centre offers two types of appointments. The majority are online (synchronous) with some in-person appointments:

During a synchronous appointment, you will meet with the writing consultant online at the booked time. The consultant will work with you using audio/video, chat and a document-sharing whiteboard area. You will be asked to upload your writing to the whiteboard, so please have the document that you would like to work on open and available at the beginning of your appointment. There is no need to submit your writing beforehand.

During an in-person appointment, you must arrive 5-10 minutes before the scheduled appointment time at the GCAC Writing Centre (MR108, 1st floor, McMurrich Building, 12 Queen’s Park Crescent West) and bring a hard copy of your writing sample. The Writing Instructor will provide you with feedback during the appointment. If you arrive early for your appointment, you may wait in the Writing Centre’s waiting area (outside MR108) until your appointment time.

Please note: The following departments/faculties offer their own writing support through one-on-one consultations:

Students from these departments/faculties are also eligible to book appointments at the GCAC Writing Centre. While their home writing centre will be better able to support them with course assignments and with discipline-specific writing, they may also wish to visit the GCAC Writing Centre for additional support for general academic writing (e.g., grant proposals, research articles, or theses).

Book / update a Writing Centre appointment

If you experience any technical difficulties with the system, please email us at sgs.gcac@utoronto.ca.

Step 1: Log In

Log in to the WCONLINE booking system. When you log in, you will be prompted to enter your UTORid and password. (If you have questions about UTORid, please visit UTORid Management.)

Step 2: View the Schedule

On the top of the booking site, you can scroll through weeks and you can sort by type of appointment. Appointments are usually released for booking two or three weeks in advance of the appointment dates so you will only see the available appointments for the next two or three weeks.

Scroll down past the announcements and on the left you will see the week’s dates. Below the date you will see the consultant(s) name(s). And beside the consultant’s name you will see the type of appointment: either “Synchronous Online Appointment” or “In-person or Synchronous Online Appointment.” All appointments in the row will correspond with the type of appointment.

Step 3: Book an Appointment

Click on an available white square corresponding to the date, time, consultant and appointment type you wish to book and fill out the booking form.

How to Join the Waiting List

If all the appointments are booked, you can add yourself to the waiting list. On the right, below the daily schedule you will see the daily waiting list. Click it and add yourself for all the dates that apply. Should an appointment become available, all students on the waiting list will receive a notification, and the appointment is available for booking on a first-come, first-served basis.

How to Cancel an Appointment

Should you wish to cancel an appointment, log in to the WCONLINE booking system. Navigate to and click on your booked appointment. At the bottom of the booking form, select “CANCEL APPOINTMENT.”

Attending appointments

How to Join Your Synchronous Online Appointment

If you have booked a synchronous online appointment you will meet with the writing consultant online at the booked time. The consultant will work with you using audio/video, chat and a document-sharing whiteboard area.

To participate in your online appointment, log in to the WCONLINE booking system approximately five minutes before the start of your appointment. You will need a webcam and microphone and ensure that your local internet provider has not put up any firewalls for this form of communication. Try to use Firefox or Chrome browsers and make sure you have their latest version installed.

Click on your appointment and click “Start or Join Online Consultation.” If you are unable to join using the default video conferencing platform, please contact us at sgs.gcac@utoronto.ca and request the appointment to be set up through an alternate platform.

In-Person Appointments

If you have booked an in-person appointment, you must bring a hard copy of your writing sample to your appointment with the writing instructor. The writing instructor will provide you with a feedback during the appointment time.

Please ensure to arrive 5–10 minutes before the scheduled appointment time to the GCAC Writing Centre (Room MR108, 1st Floor, 12 Queen’s Park Crescent West) and wait in the Writing Centre’s waiting area (outside room MR108) until the appointment start time.

Writing Centre Policies

There are a limited number of one-on-one consultations available, and the demand for appointments is high. In order to make the best use of this limited resource, we have strict attendance and cancellation policies:

You may carry two appointments at any given time, but you may not book two within the same calendar week.
You are limited to five appointments in the Winter 2025 term (Jan 6 – May 2).
If you can no longer attend the appointment you must cancel at least 48 hours in advance of the appointment. Failure to cancel 48 hours in advance will result in a 0.5 point penalty being applied to your record at the Writing Centre. Cancelling less than 24 hours in advance will incur a 1 point penalty.
If you do not cancel a synchronous appointment and do not attend the appointment online or by phone, you will incur a 1 point penalty.
If you do not cancel an in-person appointment and do not attend the appointment in-person, you will incur a 1 point penalty.
If you are more than ten minutes late, your appointment will be treated as missed and you will incur a 1 point penalty.

Penalty Points

If you accumulate 2 penalty points, you will be locked out of the Writing Centre booking system and you will be notified via email. Additionally, any future appointments that were previously booked will be cancelled.

Penalties will be cleared at the end of the academic year i.e. on May 2, 2025, by 5pm.

The GCAC Writing Centre is not a proofreading service. Our mandate is to teach students to improve their own writing and speaking. In our courses, workshops and consulting appointments, students are taught to identify and address the problems in their writing. While we recognize that this process takes much longer than a quick copy edit, we also know that students are not well served by becoming dependent on our writing skills instead of developing their own.