Appointment limits
Graduate students are limited a maximum of five 50-minute appointments per month. Undergraduate students are limited to a maximum of five 50-minute appointments, ten 25-minute appointments, or a combination of the two.
Editing Requests
Writing and Communication support for assignments does not breach academic integrity as we do not correct, change, or edit students’ work for them. Rather, we guide students to think more deeply about such matters as structure, organization, use of evidence, sentence structure, etc., and we scaffold learning about writing conventions such as grammar and punctuation.
Missed appointments
Students who are more than 10 minutes late for a 25-minute appointment or 15 minutes late for a 50-minute appointment will not be seen by a writing specialist. This appointment will be marked as “missed.” After three missed appointments, you will be locked out of the WCOnline system. To re-gain access to the appointment system, you will need to contact the WCC at wcc@uwaterloo.ca.
Non-Disclosure Agreements
Students and researchers may seek to work with the Writing and Communication Centre (WCC) on research conducted under a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). In these cases, WCC staff must sign the appendix of the NDA to agree to be bound by the non-disclosure terms so that writing and communication support can proceed. The student or researcher is responsible for ensuring and confirming that the Principle Investigator (PI) of said research has been consulted before the appointment and agrees with the request to sign the NDA appendix. The Research Partnerships group in the Office of Research is a resource for further guidance around NDAs.
Take-home exams
Take-home exams are unique in the general expectation that the student will complete the exam without making use of unauthorized resources and unauthorized collaborations. Permitted resources and collaborations are explicitly stated in the take-home exam’s instructions. For this reason, the Writing and Communication Centre (WCC) will not provide support in consultations to students who are seeking support for the writing of these exams, unless the course instructor specifically allows this support in the exam instructions or it is permitted by an accessibility accommodation that is communicated in writing ahead of or at the time of the appointment.
Without permission from instructors, students who make appointments for take-home exams will be offered generalized support, without referencing the exam, on such topics as writing a thesis statement, constructing a paragraph, integrating evidence, or grammar conventions.
Note: Writing and Communication support for assignments does not breach academic integrity as we do not correct, change, or edit students’ work for them. Rather, we guide students to think more deeply about such matters as structure, organization, use of evidence, sentence structure, etc., and we scaffold learning about writing conventions such as grammar and punctuation.
WCOnline user accounts
Only the student registered with the WCOnline account is permitted to book appointments for themselves under this account. Please note that impersonating another student is considered an Academic offense under University of Waterloo Policy 71 – Student Discipline.
Comprehensive Exams
Comprehensive exams are unique in the general expectation that the student will complete this work without making use of unauthorized resources and unauthorized collaborations. For this reason, the Writing and Communication Centre will tutor students with comprehensive exams only to the extent allowed explicitly by each respective department administering the exam.Students who are seeking writing support for a comprehensive exam are responsible for providing a completed Comprehensive Exam Agreement Form at the beginning of their appointment.
Students who make appointments and do not provide a completed Comprehensive Exam Tutoring Agreement Form indicating explicit departmental permission for WCC support will be offered generalized support, without referencing the comprehensive exam, on such topics as writing a thesis statement, constructing a paragraph, integrating evidence, or grammar conventions.