Welcome to the Arts Writing Centre!
Our goal is to help students develop their writing talents in a friendly and collaborative environment. Our mandate is to work with students who are enrolled in courses offered by the English Department.
In Winter 2022, the Arts Writing Centre offers real-time virtual appointments with students through Zoom. The scheduling page (see below) indicates when the tutors are available.
If you need help with your writing assignments for other courses in other faculties, please contact the uOttawa Academic Writing Help Centre at https://sass.uottawa.ca/en/writing.
ENG students: We are equipped to help students whose first language is English. ESL students can seek help from the Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute (OLBI) by contacting the Julien Couture Resource Centre.
Our staff is composed of uOttawa graduate students with a great deal of experience tutoring and teaching. We provide our expertise in combination with digital resources like grammar software and online dictionaries and databases.
To make an appointment with a tutor, please click here (https://english.uottawa.ca/tutoring/) to check our schedules. We accept drop-ins whenever possible, although spaces are limited and may be subject to technical delays. Students may book a maximum of two half-hour blocks per day, and a maximum of three hours per week.
Our Guidelines
Please come prepared with a good understanding of your assignment and your professor's expectations. For example:
- Grammar and Style
- Thesis statement(s)
- Introductory / Concluding paragraphs
- Topic sentences
- Organization
- Citations
Rather than proofread or copy-edit your work, we will work together in order to help you understand how to improve your own writing.
For obvious reasons, we cannot evaluate and critique an entire unmarked essay, but we can certainly focus on particular paragraphs or sections that prove most problematic.
To make our meeting as efficient as possible, we ask that you perform the following tasks before our appointment begins:
- Do your best to finish your draft. If you are still brainstorming essay ideas, it is best to do so with your professor or classmates.
- Meet your professor. Make certain that you fully understand the assignment and expectations.
- Keep an open mind. Working with a tutor doesn’t guarantee a better grade, but it is an important step toward improving your performance.
- Make sure that you have stable internet access during our session.
- Have an electronic copy of your writing open on your computer. This is so that you might be able to share the document with the tutor during your appointment.
- For virtual sessions, familiarize yourself with Zoom, and/or download a Zoom client (https://zoom.us/download) to participate in a session with an Arts Writing Centre Tutor.
For more detailed information, please read the Writing Help Service page.
We look forward to working with you!
For 2021 and 2022, students should continue to book appointments through the online schedule, and tutors will email students with confirmation of the appointment. Winter 2022 appointments will be virtual.
