The Writing Center provides supplemental instruction to help students improve their writing strategies. Instead of providing a proofreading service, we offer tutoring sessions that assist students in learning to proofread their own work, in getting projects started, and in developing the writing process for a paper.

The Writing Center offers 45-minute appointments with graduate student tutors who work with individual students or with groups. Most tutoring sessions are by appointment; walk-in appointments are provided when tutors are not in a scheduled session. For distance students, we use WCOnline for online appointments. Students have the option of making standing appointments with tutors once per week for up to four weeks at a time. In addition to tutoring services for undergraduate and graduate students, we will visit classrooms to provide writing lessons and group tutorials.

Thank you for visiting the Writing Center at ODU.

Megan Boeshart, Writing Center Director

Writing Center Appointment Policies

Number of appointments allowed per week: Students can have three appointments per week.

Appointment Length: Appointments are 45 minutes.

Proof or verification of appointments: The WC will send professors an email after an appointment. Students need to email us at writingcenter@odu.edu or talk to their tutor once the appointment has concluded to get the verification sent. Our tutors will not sign any documents.

Requesting a specific tutor for your appointments: Provided that a particular tutor is available during the hours that you request, he or she can see you on a regular basis.

Missed appointments and cancellations: When the Writing Center is booked, the only way students can get appointments is if we have a cancellation. When the WC is full, you may be able to get an appointment at ten minutes past any hour if someone doesn't show up for an appointment. Please use the Wait List feature in our scheduling system if this happens.

If you cannot make it to an appointment, please email us at writingcenter@odu.edu OR cancel the appointment yourself within our appointment system. If it is already past the start of your appointment, you can still email us within 10 minutes of the start of the appointment to cancel without penalty.

Late policy for appointments: All appointments begin on the hour. We hold the appointment for 10 minutes. If a student doesn't show up, the appointment is considered a no-show. There is no penalty for cancellations, but there is a penalty for no-shows. Please remember that our appointments are in demand. Being a no-show means taking away an appointment from someone else. Students are allowed two missed appointments per semester (without any attempt to contact us and cancel or reschedule ahead of time). After two appointments are missed, a student's WCOnline account will be disabled.

Required appointments: The Writing Center is a voluntary service. The WC has a limited number of tutors and appointments and is unable to offer teaching assistance for individual instructors, courses, or departments.

Distance appointments: All students can make online appointments with us via our scheduling system.

Time: Please note that our appointments are 45 minutes. This means we may not be able to get through an entire piece of writing, especially if it is more than a few pages. We encourage students to plan ahead so they can have multiple appointments if necessary.

Accessibility: If you need live captioning for a real time appointment or captioning for video feedback due to a disability, please make a note in the "questions or comments" section of the appointment form that you'd like the captions and we'd be happy to provide them.