The Writing Centre at UL offers a free and friendly place for all staff and students (undergraduate and postgraduate) to come and address any aspect of their writing.
We offer:
The Regional Writing Centre is located in the Main Building in C1-065 (on the C1 corridor, just before the Red Raisins canteen). You will see a glass door printed with our logo opposite our Writing Centre noticeboard.
Click here for a video by F7W on how to get to us from Brown Thomas!
The Writing Centre caters for UL students and staff of all disciplines and from all faculties. We even have discipline-specific tutors to help out with most styles of academic writing. Staff can avail of our peer-tutoring sessions if attending the Centre as a postgraduate or PhD student, or book a staff consultation with our Writing Centre consultants if attending as a staff member. To view a list of our tutors and their specialities, click here. To book a staff consultation, please email writingcentre@ul.ie.
You can call in any time between 10-12 and 2-4pm, Monday to Friday
We have a dedicated Writers’ Space here in C1-065. It is a distraction-free room with no internet access. It is perfect for those who want to write, but find it difficult to write alone. The Writers’ Space is open to all students from 9am to 1pm, Monday to Wednesday. Drop in between classes or dedicate a morning to your work, the choice is yours!
Opening days vary each semester and are advertised through email and social media.
Services offered by the Writing Centre are free. No matter whether you attend a workshop or a peer tutoring session, it will not cost you a cent.
If you would like to meet with one of our tutors, you can book an appointment online at ul.mywconline.com. If it is your first time visiting the site, you will have to register using your student email. Once registered, you can view the schedule. White slots are free to book. You may book up to one hour per week.
A quick query is an academic writing question that requires no more than 15 minutes of the tutor's time to answer. If the question takes longer than 15 minutes to answer, then the tutor will advise you to make an appointment.
If you have a quick query for one of our peer tutors, go to www.ul.ie/rwc and click on "Book a session with a Peer-Tutor". You do not need to log in. Simply click "To submit a quick query, click here!".
Once you've registered at studentvolunteer.ie, you can send your Writing-talk Advocates submission to writingcentre@ul.ie. You can also go directly to our Tumblr and submit your piece at https://regionalwritingcentreul.tumblr.com/submit.
You can only have one peer tutoring session booked at a time in the Writing Centre.
Firstly, this is because it is unfair to hold a second booking at the same time, preventing another student from using the service.
Also, almost nobody who comes to talk to the Writing Centre's peer tutors should know that they will need another session, before finishing their first one. This is because the aim of our tutors is to make students more confident, critical and autonomous writers, who no longer need to use this service.
The only exception to this rule is if a student needs to talk about two very different types of assignment (for example, law and politics). They can then book two half-hour sessions with specialists in those areas.
Anytime a student is found to have made more than one appointment at a time the later appointment will be canceled and the tutee notified by email immediately.
You can book either half-hour or hour long appointments at the Writing Centre.
No, students cannot request to meet a tutor outside the Writing Centre. Outside of the hours provided to students, the Centre has no control over the quality of tutoring provided. It also would over-step the ethical boundaries placed by the Centre and eat into the peer tutors' own time to study.
If you cannot find any times this week that suit you, you can either click on the clock image next to each day to see when there are cancellations, or you can book for the following week. Do not worry if you cannot book a session with a specialist tutor in your area, as they are all capable of talking to you about your assignment.
If a student doesn't show up to an appointment 10 minutes into the session, they are marked as a 'no-show'. This means that their booking privileges on the Writing Centre website will be rescinded, and they won't be able to log into the system.
If a student has a fair reason for not attending a session, then their booking privileges can be restored on the site, by the administrative assistant in the Writing Centre.
If a student's booking privileges have been rescinded, they can still pop into the Writing Centre and avail of any sessions that were either not booked, canceled, or to which another student didn't show up. All free sessions are posted on the Writing Centre's Twitter page (@RWCUL).
The current booking policy means that students are given their booking privileges back at the beginning of a new semester. This policy is reviewed on an ongoing basis and is subject to change in the future.
If there is an appointment time that you want, but that someone else has booked, you can go on the waiting list. Log into the schedule and click the white clock icon on the left side of the screen, next to the date. Make sure to choose a tutor who is tutoring that day, and a time they are tutoring!
Our tutors only come to the Writing Centre at the times that they are scheduled for, so referencing a tutor who isn't listed on the schedule will mean that you won't get an alert email if an appointment frees up. We also update our Twitter (@RWCUL) page daily with details of appointment cancellations and no-shows, and put a 'Drop-In' sign on the Centre door when a student does not arrive for their appointment. A 'Drop-In' sign means that a tutor is in the Centre and is available to speak to a student.
If you have any difficulty booking online, please drop into the Writing Centre, C1-065, between 10.00 and 12.00 or 14.00 and 16.00, Monday to Friday. Alternatively, you may email any further queries to writingcentre@ul.ie.
Peer tutoring times can be viewed and booked on https://ul.mywconline.com.
Times for tutoring, Writers' Groups and workshops, seminars, etc can be viewed on the Regional Writing Centre weekly timetable via the following link: https://padlet.com/writingcentre/timetable.
Upcoming workshops and other RWC activities will also be posted on our Facebook and Twitter pages.
Unfortunately, we don't proofread at the Regional Writing Centre. This is because we are a learning centre - a resource, not a service. We can teach you the skills you need to proofread your own work.
Tell us about your experience, good or bad, by completing the appropriate section of the survey emailed to you following your session. (Alternatively, you can fill out a paper copy of the survey in the Writing Centre.) These surveys are reviewed on a regular basis and any issues that you bring to our attention will be addressed. If there is a problem that you feel has not been adequately addressed or an issue that you feel needs immediate attention, please contact the RWC's Director: lawrence.cleary@ul.ie . All communications will be addressed in the strictest confidence.
Students and/or staff can only have one peer tutoring session booked at a time in the Regional Writing Centre.
The only exception to this rule is if a student needs to talk about two very different types of assignment (for example, law and politics). They can then book two half-hour sessions with specialists in those areas. However, they must complete their first half-hour of tutoring before they can book the second half-hour.
Individuals can spend a maximum of one hour with a tutor each week.
If a person is found to have more than one appointment booked at a time, the second appointment will be canceled and the tutee notified by email.
Please note that you can only cancel an appointment up to two hours before the actual appointment. If you are canceling an appointment on the day of the session, please email writingcentre@ul.ie so that we can give the time to another student who needs it.
If a student doesn't show up to an appointment 10 minutes into the session, he/she is marked as a 'no-show'. They will be removed from our online booking system until the following semester and their appointment will be offered to students on the waiting list.
If an appointment is missed for a genuine reason, the tutee can drop into the Regional Writing Centre and have their online booking privileges restored by the administrative assistant.
