Email Sessions

To make your Email Session the most successful, please carefully review the following guidelines.

The Writing Center is now offering 30- and 60-minute sessions. We recommend that writers schedule 30-minute sessions for documents of 5 pages or fewer. Most Consultants can review only 10 pages per 60-minute session, so please limit your document to 10 pages for those longer session times.

If your document is larger than 10 pages, we recommend you break the document into pieces and create multiple appointments. Writers can have multiple appointments per week.

Even still, we cannot guarantee that the Consultant will be able to review the entire document in the given time of the appointment. The Consultant will review the document for the designated appointment time and then return the document when the time has elapsed. If the Consultant is not able to review the entire document, we will suggest you make another appointment to have the remainder of the document reviewed.

You may make an appointment and save that appointment without having a document uploaded. Some writers do this to “hold” their session times. However, it is your responsibility to ensure the document is ready for the Consultant at the scheduled appointment time. If you do not upload a document by your scheduled appointment time, your session will be canceled.

All work must be uploaded as a Microsoft file. If you upload a file other than these, and the Consultant notices before the session time, you may be alerted to this issue. If this issue is not noticed before your session time, your session will be canceled, with an explanation, and you’ll be asked to reschedule and upload the appropriate file type. Microsoft Office 365, including Word, is available for free to all UNC students, faculty, and staff. Please see the IMT website for details.

- All feedback on Word documents is provided on Microsoft Word using the Commenting and TrackChanges feature unless special arrangements are made between the Writer and Consultant. If you do not see any comments or changes to your document, make sure this feature is turned on BEFORE emailing the Writing Center to inquire. Go to Review → Track Changes and click. Additionally in this area, you can select “Show All Markup” to see all changes made. You can also Accept or Reject changes made from this menu. If you’re still experiencing issues, please visit Microsoft’s help page about Track Changes.

You may share Google Doc links in the appointment form. However, it is your responsibility to make sure that the sharing parameters are set appropriately and that your consultant can view and edit your document. If we cannot access your document and provide comments on it, we will not review it, your appointment will be canceled, and you'll be asked to reschedule.

Though you are not required, we strongly encourage you to upload your assignment guidelines and/or describe the writing assignment or context. It is very difficult to know if your assignment is successful if we don’t understand what the guidelines require.
The better your questions about your work, the better our feedback will be. Let us know specifically what concerns you. If your only question is “does my assignment follow the assignment sheet?” you may receive very little feedback, especially if it does follow the assignment expectations. Help your Consultant focus on the elements you’re most concerned about by asking questions about those areas. Help us help you.
Our online scheduling system allows for only ONE document to be shared at a time. If you have additional documents that your Consultant should see, you may email those to the Consultant directly (all Consultant emails are posted on our Meet the Consultants page) and/or send those to the Writing Center's email (writingcenter@unco.edu).

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