Lauren Keller is a new-to-TRU storyteller and will be reporting on her orientation and transition experience throughout the upcoming year.

Writing an essay can be nerve-wracking for any number of reasons. You may end up spending more time worrying about how you’re going to write your essay than actually writing it. Whether you’re stressing about the blank page or sweating those citations (or anywhere in between), the Writing Centre can help you become a better writer.

Here are 5 reasons to book a Writing Centre appointment:

There are supports for every part of the writing process.

Wherever you’re at in the writing process, a Writing Centre tutor can help you with assignment interpretation, brainstorming, organization, flow, development, research, clarity, style, and tone.

You can easily register or book an appointment online.

Booking an appointment in advance can help keep you accountable as you have a set amount of time to complete what you need to before the meeting; make sure to come into the appointment knowing what you need help with. It only takes a couple of minutes to register, and you can opt to meet in person or online, and choose asynchronous or synchronous sessions. You might think that you don’t have enough time or you have too many classes spread out throughout the day; however, you can book an appointment from 9 am to 8 pm any day of the week. You can also book days in advance or cancel an appointment if necessary. Open Learning undergraduate students can access the online writing support service WriteAway.

Submit up to three drafts of your paper to WriteAway, and online tutors will provide strategies and resources to help you improve your writing. Tutors do their best to share feedback within 48 hours, but response times can get longer at peak times. Please submit well in advance of your deadlines.

 Citation support is also available. 

Learning a new style of citation can be challenging. It may be difficult to differentiate how to cite different types of sources, but even if your citation style is something less common like SAA, a Writing Centre tutor is willing to help. 

A tutor can help you make sense of difficult-to-understand assignments. 

Some courses are more complex than others, and so are the assignments that come with them. There are many tutors with unique skillsets that can help help you make sense of your project and figure out the next steps.

There are many tutors with specific sets of skills.

Different tutors also offer different perspectives, which can be helpful when doing a more extensive assignment or one worth a large portion of your grade to ensure you did not miss anything you could improve on. When booking an appointment, you can read about the individual tutor’s skills or click this link to learn more about them here. 

Check out the website for more information on the Writing Centre or view their videos.