Appointment Policies and Restrictions   

Who may use the Writing Center? 

If you are a member of the UGHE community–a student, a staff member, faculty, or alumni within one year of graduation–you may use the Writing Center’s free services. 

• You may schedule appointments to work on your own writing only.  
• Number of appointments per day, per week, and per semester  
• You may book up to two appointments per week. If you are working on a thesis or dissertation, one of these may be a Thesis/Diss consultation. 
• Students, faculty and staff may book up to fifteen appointments per semester. Alumni within one year of graduation may book up to five appointments per semester. 
• You may not submit the same version of a draft to more than one consultant; that is, you must revise in response to a consultant’s feedback before submitting the draft. If you are working on a paper longer than 10 pages, however, you may submit the draft to one consultant, then submit the draft to a second consultant, with the first tutor’s comments in the document. The second consultant can then provide feedback on parts of the draft the first consultant did not reach. 
• You may not book back-to-back sessions. 

No-show and cancellation policy 

• If you are more than ten minutes late for your appointment, you lose the exclusive right to that appointment, and the session may be given to a walk-in student. 
• After two missed appointments (or what we call “no-shows”) you are prohibited from booking further appointments for the current term, and your existing appointments will be canceled. You may, however, use the Writing Center on a walk-in basis.  
• Sessions may be canceled up to two hours prior to the scheduled session. Clients who do not cancel in time and fail to appear for a session will be counted as a “no-show”.  
• Clients who abuse the scheduling system or our policies are no longer eligible to receive our services.

A Few Kinds of Writing We Cannot Help You With 

Although the Writing Center can help you with most types of writing, we are subject to certain specific restrictions.

• We are not permitted to help you with take-home essay exams unless you have written permission from your instructor, or the instructor has contacted the Writing Center directly. 
• We are not permitted to help you with writing that has legal or financial implications or is related to an appeal of a university decision. 
• Consultants are prepared to help you with writing personal statements for fellowships, jobs, or graduate school; however, some schools and programs do not permit any outside assistance with the writing of your personal statement. It is your responsibility to determine whether or not writing help is permitted. The UGHE Writing Center is not liable if the writer violates such a policy.

Confidentiality of Consulting Sessions 

The Writing Center believes that a collaborative relationship between lecturers, consultants, and writers is the most conducive to writing improvement. We do, however, respect the confidentiality of every consulting session. Should an instructor inquire about the content of a session, we will not provide this information unless the writer has given permission for us to share it. 

Plagiarism 

Plagiarism is a difficult issue for any writing center. Our consultants generally assume that the writing brought to them is the writer’s own. If there are concerns with how and when research is cited, consultants do point out these concerns and explain the necessity for correct and thorough citations. 

Consultants do not report suspected plagiarism to anyone outside of the Writing Center. If a consultant feels that a paper is clearly not the work of the writer present for the session, and the writer resists reworking the potentially plagiarized elements of the assignment, that consultant may cancel the session at their sole discretion.