Our Services

The Writing Centre is a friendly place where you can talk with Learning Advisors about developing your academic skills and improving your writing.

Please take your time to browse the information below; from appointments to drop-in sessions, we hope you find a service that suits you!

Appointments: one-on-one writing consultations 

Writing Centre Appointments are available for all current undergraduate and postgraduate coursework students, from all Faculties and courses. Appointments are 30-minutes long, offering a chance to have an in-depth one-on-one discussion about your writing with a Learning Advisor.

Teaching Weeks Appointment Hours 
OPEN for in-person and online consultations from 10am-4pm, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Appointment Availability: Appointments open 4 business days (weekdays) in advance - this runs on a rolling schedule that excludes weekends. For instance, appointments on Fridays open for booking on the Monday prior, while appointments on Thursdays open for booking on the Friday prior (4 weekdays in advance). So, if you were aiming to get an appointment at 11am on Friday, then this would become available to book from 11am Monday onwards. 

No appointments available? If the booking system currently shows that no appointments are available (they are often in high demand!), keep checking back and more will become available over time. Or, consider coming to drop-in Wednesdays - no appointment needed!

Finally, before making an appointment, please read our Booking Policy.

Book a face-to-face writing consultation   Book an online writing consultation

Drop-in Wednesdays

OPEN for in-person drop-ins from 10am - 4pm, every Wednesday during teaching weeks.

Want a quiet space to work on your academic writing and English skills with the support of a Learning Advisor? Come along to our Drop-in Wednesdays - no appointment needed! Drop-in Wednesdays have Learning Advisors present to answer your questions and to help facilitate an encouraging space for you to work on your writing. 

Drop-in session guidelines

  • Drop-in sessions are designed for independent study with quick check-ins from a Learning Advisor to keep you on track. For more detailed advice about your writing, consider booking a one-on-one, 30-minute appointment.
  • Before you see a Learning Advisor, consider what targeted advice you need before they come to help you.

Workshops

The Writing Centre often runs a number of writing and study skills workshops throughout the semester, including our Neurodivergent Study Skills workshops, LANTITE Preparation workshops, and the English Assist Program. For more information about these workshops, or to access past recordings, visit our workshops page.

We also run some workshops in collaboration with the Disability, Illness and Divergence Association (DIDA) @dida.uoa.

If you would like us to drop into your class to teach assignment-specific skills across any discipline or level of study, please feel free to contact us at writingcentre@adelaide.edu.au.  

  • How can you best use the Writing Centre?
    • Take ownership over and pride in your writing. This is your chance to communicate your ideas. They are yours and only yours. We want to help you learn how to better express your own ideas.
    • We are not a grammar checking service, nor an editing or drafting service. Though we are happy to discuss sentence structure and word choice with you, we want you to know that grammar is not just a right or wrong proposition; it is a set of choices that can strengthen or weaken your writing. You need to do the work of understanding subjects, verbs and objects, and how they should best combine to communicate your ideas. Look at the resources within the helpful websites and books to improve your English guide, and make a daily practice of learning about the grammatical choices open to you.
    • Be open to ideas to strengthen your writing. If you see us hours before your assignment is due, and are just looking for someone to reassure you that your writing is ‘ok’, then we cannot do that for you. Our job is to help you become a better writer, not just to make you feel good about one particular assignment.
    • We are critical readers of your work. We are called Learning Advisors, and we serve as such. We are experienced writers who can support you as you become more experienced writers yourselves. Think of us in this way. We are going to ask you questions. We are going to tell you how a reader reacts to your work, and what a reader expects from your writing.
    • Try to have specific questions about your writing ready for us when we see you, and try to visit us well before your assignment is due.
    • If you are an undergraduate student, you can use Studiosity for 24/7 online feedback. You may also wish to see if there is a PASS class for your course. For referencing support, please consult the University Library. 
    • Writing Centre appointments are for undergraduate and postgraduate coursework students. If you are a HDR student, please enquire with the Adelaide Graduate Research School.  
    • We see writing relating to the development of your academic writing and research skills, or relating to a University of Adelaide course of study. For example, we do not advise on the content of IELTS tests, PTE tests, CVs, or job applications. For assistance with increasing your employability, consider engaging with the university's excellent Career Services team. For advice on using Endnote, please see the Library's excellent Endnote Essentials course. 

  • Booking policies

    We have a few rules in place to help ensure appointments run smoothly. These include:

    • Students can make an appointment once per day, up to two times per week.  
    • If you cannot attend a booking, please ensure you cancel with at least 6 hours notice so that another student has the chance to have the appointment. Demand for our service is high (particularly later in the semester!), so please make bookings that you are able to attend. Repeated instances of late cancellations, or not coming to booked appointments, may lead to restricted bookings for the future.
    • Before your appointment, please send your writing to appointments_wc@adelaide.edu.au; this helps with document sharing during the appointment.
    • You can only make an appointment for yourself. You cannot book on behalf of a friend.
    • If you want to work on a group assignment, then we can only look at the parts that you have written yourself.
    • Please do not book a face-to-face appointment if you are unwell. If you are visibly unwell in the Writing Centre, we may ask you to leave. 
    • If Learning Advisors are treated in an aggressive or threatening manner, then the person behaving in that manner will be barred from further use of the Writing Centre.