WSC Policies & FAQs

Only current students or those with an active Western email address (@uwo.ca) may use WSC services. WSC advisors reserve the right to refuse service to anyone not following WSC policies. 

Writing advisors do not proofread or edit papers in order to maintain academic integrity. Students are responsible for their own work. The goal of the Writing Support Centre is to help members of the Western community improve as writers. See our Writing Support Centre FAQs below to learn about what happens during an appointment with an advisor or when a paper is submitted to Online Writing Assistance. 

We are able to respond to only one submission at a time. You must wait until you receive our feedback before submitting additional writing. Multiple submissions will be ignored. Due to high demand for Online Writing Assistance, advisors may choose not to review online submissions previously reviewed by WSC advisors. To ensure writers actively participate in the learning process, advisors may also choose not to review new submissions if writers have not read or adequately attempted to integrate advisor feedback from previous submissions.  

If for any reason you are unable to attend your appointment, please be considerate of your fellow students and cancel your appointment from Western Connect, so another student may make use of your appointment time. Cancellations are not possible within 8 hours of your appointment time. Students who fail to attend their appointment are listed as a No-Show, which can limit future access to our services. 

To ensure other members of the Western Community can access our highly sought-after services, students may use only one of our services at a time, either in-person appointments or Online Writing Assistance. For example, WSC advisors will not review an online submission if a student has booked an appointment for the same day.  

Due to the high demand for one-to-one appointments, students may book only one appointment at a time and per day. Once you have attended your appointment, you are welcome to book your next appointment.

We will review any academic and professional writing at any stage of your writing process. However, advisors may choose not to review written work we deem was not produced by the student. 

For the sake of academic integrity, students are limited to two sessions per assignment. This policy does not apply to longer works such as theses and dissertations. 

See Undergraduate Seminars or GradWRITE Seminars for information about how to register for online seminars. We are not offering in-person seminars at this time.  

Booking 50-minute appointments is done ONLINE through Western Connect. Instructions can be found on our Undergrad Appointments page and our Grads and Postdocs Appointments page. Students can sign up for daily 25-minute appointments at our Weldon Library location. See Writing Support @ Weldon. Students can request changing an in-person appointment to a Zoom appointment. The link to request a Zoom appointment is included in the confirmation email you receive upon booking an in-person appointment. 

You will be sent an automatic confirmation email and 24-hour reminder email from Western Connect. These emails will provide the appointment details: date, time, location, and name of advisor. Please note in-person appointments take place in one of two locations: Western Student Services Building room 4100, and Weldon Library room M15 on the Mezzanine level. Your appointment confirmation email includes a link to request changing an in-person appointment to a Zoom appointment. 

1. Check out our 2-minute how-it-works video for a quick overview. 
2. The writing advisor will ask you some questions about the assignment on which you are working and may ask to see the assignment instructions.
3. You and the writing advisor will discuss your concerns about the written work you want your advisor to review.
4. The writing advisor will review the paper with you, give you feedback, and answer your questions about the writing process, your style, the way you organize your material, the clarity of ideas, and any other concerns that arise.
5. However, we are also happy to have a conversation about what you are working on without seeing your writing. We encourage brainstorming sessions. 

1. Writing advisors DO NOT edit student papers. There is one exception to this strict guideline. Writing advisors may help more extensively with papers that will not be submitted for a grade (such as professional school applications, scholarship applications, or statements of purpose).
2. Writing advisors do not focus the session on small grammatical concerns. They may address one or two issues by teaching you about the problem, but they will not make changes for you.
3. Writing advisors do not tell you what kind of grade you can expect on your paper. That decision is for course instructors and teaching assistants to make.

Writing advisors do not edit papers in order to maintain academic integrity. Students are responsible for their own work. The goal of the Writing Support Centre is to help members of the Western community improve as writers.

1. You can have documents ready to share on your device. These may include the instructions for the assignment, a rough draft, an outline, prewriting notes, or completed work. Note that you do not have to have any work complete to use our services; we can help brainstorm ideas to get you started. 
2. You are also welcome to have us review graded papers, so that we can provide you feedback on your past performance and your instructor's comments.
3. We give our full attention to students with booked appointments or students who have submitted their writing to Online Writing Assistance. We are not able to respond to writing questions submitted by email.

Since we focus on individual writers, we welcome the opportunity to meet with anyone who wants to work on their writing skills. Feel free to bring some previous work or a list of questions about your writing.

Writing Support Centre one-to-one appointments and Online Writing Assistance are confidential. In some cases, instructors will give extra credit for student visits, and arrangements are made to let the instructor know students have visited the centre; however, the record of the session still remains confidential. 

• • The Writing Support Centre is an editing service. FALSE
  • The Writing Support Centre provides help only at a remedial level. FALSE
  • Good writers can benefit from a peer review. TRUE
  • Writing advisors focus only on the surface elements of a paper. FALSE
  • Writing advisors will tell you what to write. FALSE
  • Writing appointments can be used just for a brainstorming session. TRUE
  • Students can submit their papers in advance for the writing advisor to proofread. FALSE
  • A Writing Support Centre appointment is an absolute guarantee of a better grade. FALSE
  • Undergraduates use the Writing Support Centre. TRUE
  • Graduate students and postdocs use the Writing Support Centre. TRUE