Our core service is a 50-minute, one-to-one consultation with one of our professional writing consultants. This semester (Fall 2021), the majority of our sessions will meet online, but there will be limited one-to-one appointments available on campus in NVC 8-185.
Click on a link below to jump to the relevant section:
Signing up for an appointment
Book your appointment via our online schedule. All of the appointments currently default to an online session, so be sure to check the meeting options!
Click on any available (white) slot that matches your preferred time and mode, and save the appointment after you’ve answered all questions.
Accessing online sessions
During an online session, you can ask questions and work on a shared virtual document with a consultant in real time. Consultants are available to meet in different forms, including video, audio, and/or text-only chat appointments. When it’s time for your session to begin, log in to the scheduler again and click on your appointment (your time should appear in gold). There, you’ll find a red link to join your session:
Accessing in-person sessions
Double check to make sure you signed up for an in-person session—we will have limited staffing on campus! For consultants available to meet in person, you’ll see this open when you go to save your appointment:
You can find us on the 8th floor of the Newman Vertical Campus, in 8-185 (near the central elevators). A staff member will check you in. If you can, please bring two copies of your draft!
Adding yourself to the waiting list
Our schedule is always in flux, and appointments frequently become available last-minute due to student cancelations. You can add yourself to the waitlist through our online scheduler to receive notifications when we have an opening.
Under each day’s schedule, you’ll find a link that reads “WAITING LIST: [DATE].” Click this link, and a pop-up will open that asks you to choose whether you’d like to hear about all openings, or just those for specific times / consultants:
If an appointment opens up within the parameters you specified, WCOnline will send you an automated message. Waiting list notifications can be sent via text message or email. If you want to receive waiting list notifications via text message, you need to opt in by entering your text messaging preferences in your profile settings.
Once you receive the email/text that a session is open, log into the schedule ASAP to reserve it. These notifications go out to everyone on the waiting list at once, so another student may have already reserved the hour by the time you see the message! As long you remain on the waiting list, you’ll keep receiving notifications every time someone cancels a session. To stop receiving these messages, click the “WAITING LIST” link again to remove yourself.
Important: A waitlist notification does NOT mean that the appointment is reserved for you! To reserve the appointment, follow the message link or log into the schedule to reserve an appointment in the open slot.
WCOnline notifies everyone on the waitlist at the same time, so if many people are waiting, openings can be claimed very quickly. Keep checking for notifications and try to reserve your spot as quickly as possible!
Preparing for your session
You’ll get the most out of your session with a little preparation. Here’s what we recommend:
- Try to schedule your appointment so that you can draft beforehand, and leave enough time following your session to revise. You’ll want to put into practice what you learned.
- Have materials related to your project accessible: copies of your draft, any assignment prompts or feedback you’ve gotten, the texts you’re reading, and sources you’re considering using.
- Read over your writing before your session. Try to identify the strong parts of your writing, as well as a few goals or areas that you’d like to work on.
If you have specific questions about your professor’s assignment or expectations, be sure to ask! The more you can tell us about the goals for your writing, the better.
In order to best serve all students, we ask for your courtesy:
- Arrive on time. All appointments begin at the start of the hour (for example, at 11:00 exactly). After ten minutes (for example, at 11:10), your appointment will be cancelled and offered to another student.
- Come prepared to actively engage in the session. During your session, you’ll be drafting, asking questions, revising, and engaging in productive conversation around your writing.
- Cancel your appointment if you can’t make it. You can cancel your appointment directly from the online scheduler or you can email writing.center@baruch.cuny.edu for help.
For first-time visitors
If you’ve never visited the Writing Center before, we encourage you to read through our guide for new students.
Support for capstones, theses, and other long-term research projects
If you’re working on a long-term project such as a capstone or thesis, the Writing Center offers flexible support at every stage of the writing process. Visit this page to request recurring, weekly appointments with the same consultant. On this page, you can also request a facilitator for a writing group and find resources for focusing your research topic.
