Tutoring appointments are scheduled through our Online Reservation System. Please visit our Appointment Help page if you have questions about reserving a tutoring session. If you are having difficulty using our online reservation system, you can call us during our operating hours at (408) 924-2308.

We conduct all scheduled appointments in our location on the second floor of the MLK Library. During the fall and spring semesters, we also conduct drop-in tutoring sessions (on a first-come, first-served basis) at our location in Clark Hall 126. 

Schedule a Tutoring Appointment

The following video shows brief examples of the structure of typical tutoring sessions.

When you make an appointment, you agree to the following policies. If you have questions or concerns about any of these policies, please send us an email or set up an appointment to speak with our Director. 

Our Expectations

Please review the following expectations, all of which support our mission and further your continued learning. We reserve the right to end or cancel your appointment if these expectations are not met.  

1. Eligibility: You must be currently registered and enrolled at SJSU to use Writing Center services.

2. Preparedness: You must be prepared for tutoring by bringing specific writing-related questions as well as all necessary materials, including a hard copy of the paper, prompts, outlines, or research. If you have already worked on an essay with a tutor, bring a new copy of your revised draft to your next session, demonstrating that you have attempted to apply what you have learned. Please bring printouts of all materials--for pedagogical reasons, tutors prefer not to work off electronic devices.

3. Distraction-Free Environment: The Writing Center is a distraction-free environment. Cell phones should be put away during tutoring sessions. Food and drink are not permitted (except bottled water). Please do not bring any guests with you to your appointment. During your session, be engaged in the process and be respectful of your peers and all Writing Center employees. If you are belligerent, uncooperative, or disrespectful of our front-desk staff or our tutors, you will be referred to the Writing Center Director; we reserve the right to refuse service until you have a subsequent meeting with the Director. 

4. Lateness: As a part of our distraction-free environment, the Writing Center does not tolerate lateness. If you are more than five minutes late for a tutoring session, you will be marked as a no-show for that appointment, and the tutor you were scheduled to work with will move on to another task. If you arrive late for a workshop, you will not be admitted into the workshop room.

5. Frequency of Appointments: For in-person tutoring, you can schedule one 30-minute tutoring appointment per day, with a maximum of two in-person appointments made in advance per week. Hour-long appointments are available if you have accommodations for extended tutoring time from the AEC or if you are a graduate-level student working on a large project.

For online tutoring, you can schedule one 45-minute tutoring appointment per day, with a maximum of two appointments made in advance per week. While students may cancel a session up until the appointment start time, online appointments cannot be made on the same day since we need time to send the necessary Zoom links. Students must check their SJSU email accounts for the Zoom links. If you are a graduate student working on a large project or are an AEC student who needs the accommodation of extra tutoring time, please send an email to writingcenter@sjsu.edu. We can schedule one additional tutoring session for you each week.

If you cannot make your scheduled appointment, you must cancel before the appointment is scheduled to begin. If you miss two appointments in one semester without cancelling in advance, you will be blocked from the online scheduling system. You will then be limited to using only our drop-in services for the rest of the semester (either at our in-person drop-in location in Clark Hall 126 or through our online "Ask a Tutor" live chat service). Note that drop-in sessions cannot be made in advance and may not always be available, especially during peak hours. Every student is limited to one in-person drop-in session per day. 

Due to the overwhelmingly high demand for tutoring services during the fall 2020 semester, we have put a semester limit in place for tutoring appointments during the spring 2021 term. You can schedule up to a total of 25 one-on-one tutoring appointments throughout the course of the semester. Once you reach 25 appointments during the spring semester, you will no longer be able to schedule additional tutoring sessions in advance. (You can still ask our tutors quick questions about writing on a drop-in basis through our "Ask a Tutor" live chat service.) Our goal is to accommodate as many students as possible, so this semester cap will help us ensure that we're helping even more students become better writers. 

Our Procedures

1. The Writing Center is not an editing or proofreading service. Writing tutors will not write your papers for you or perform line-by-line editing. You cannot leave a paper to be corrected by a tutor. You must be present and prepared to learn.

2. Writing tutors will not discuss a grade you have received or anticipate a grade you may receive. Professors assign grades--not Writing Center tutors. Tutors also will not offer commentary on a professor’s written feedback.

3. Writing tutors have the right to refuse to work on a paper that is due the same day or multiple papers during one tutoring session. The goal of the Writing Center is to help you learn writing skills. It will be difficult for you to learn concepts and make meaningful revisions to your work when you are rushing to do more or to meet an imminent deadline. Writing is a process!  

4. The Writing Center services are supplemental to in-class instruction. We will still adhere to our mission even if you are visiting the Writing Center for the sole purpose of receiving extra credit or fulfilling a class assignment. Writing tutors will not act as peer reviewers to make up work that you missed in class.

5. Group essays, projects, or assignments will be handled at the discretion of the writing tutor. All of our regular expectations and procedures still apply.  

6. Please visit the Accessible Education Center (AEC) if you need accommodations. Once you have your accommodation letter, bring a copy to the Writing Center and give it to our Office Coordinator.