Writing & Communication Center: Appointments

Scheduling Appointments

writing-center@mit.edu
12-132

• Appointments are scheduled only online.
• Register only 1 email address (and, if you have an MIT email address, that must be the one you register). Registering more than 1 email address will result in loss of appointment-making privileges.
• When you register, please fill out all the information requested.
• Instructions for making appointments are on the online scheduler itself.
• The online scheduler is usually opened three weeks in advance.
• To make an appointment, click on "Make an Appointment."
• Check the online scheduler to get the latest updates on which appointments are available.
• It is very advisable to make your appointments well in advance since our appointments are often all filled a week or two in advance.

Writing Consultations

• Consultations begin on the hour and last up to fifty (50) minutes.
• Appointments made at 3:00 p.m. last only 30 minutes (the Center is always closed from 3:30-4:00 p.m.)
• There is a one-appointment per week limit in order to provide advice to as many clients as possible.

• Wait List: If all the appointment slots are filled for a particular day, use the WAIT LIST option that is directly underneath each day's block of appointments on the online scheduler. You will be automatically informed by email whenever a cancellation occurs on that day. Then, if you have not already had your limit of one appointment that week, you need to go online and schedule the appointment. We usually have some cancellations every day as clients do not get written what they had hoped to, or as clients encounter other obligations (e.g., an unforeseen meeting with a professor or an emergency in the lab).Or, if you prefer, simply check the online scheduler periodically during that day for cancellations. When an appointment has been canceled, the appointment slot becomes white again. Then simply click on the open slot and make an appointment.

• Please do not phone and ask if there are any openings; the online scheduler will have the most up-to-date information about openings because our lecturers will be busy working with clients and will not be monitoring the scheduler every minute of the day.

•  Drop-In: If you have already reached the appointment limit for a week but need to consult with the Center again during that week, you may be a drop-in client no more than four times a week and never more than twice in one day. The reason for the limit on drop-in visits is twofold: (1) as with the appointment limit, we want to be available to help as many different clients as possible who want advice and (2) more than four consultations a week almost invariably leads to editing--and teaching, not editing is our mission.
• There is no guarantee that a drop-in client will actually meet with one of the Center's lecturers. It completely depends on whether or not there is an available slot or if someone is a no-show. Also be aware that at times the Center's lecturers have other tasks to perform, so a lecturer who is not working with a client might still not be free to work with you.

• If you see an open slot, on the scheduler a few minutes before the hour, that should probably be a good time to try to be a drop-in client--be sure to refresh the scheduler before you come to the Center because someone else may have made an appointment for that slot. If there are no available slots, you may come to the Center at 5 minutes after the hour (e.g., at 10:05 a.m., at 11:05 a.m., at 2:05 p.m). If the scheduled appointment client has not shown up by 10 minutes after the hour, you will have at least the next 20 minutes of that appointment slot. If the appointment client doesn't appear by 30 minutes past the hour, you can have the rest of the appointment.
• Please bring your assignment, hard copies of your work, and your goals to the consultation.
• If possible, think ahead of time about what concerns you have about your document or assignment.
  

  Policies: Cancellations and No-Shows

  If you are more than 10 minutes late, you may lose the next 20 minutes to a drop-in client. If you are more than 30 minutes late, all of your appointment slot may be given away to the drop-in client.
  To cancel an appointment, please go to the online scheduler and cancel appointments:

  •  by 8:30 a.m. for morning appointments.
  •  by noon for afternoon appointments
  • and by 4:00 p.m. for evening appointments.

   If you miss an appointment without canceling in advance (i.e., if you are a "no show"), you will not be allowed to make another appointment for two weeks and any pre-existing appointments you have during that two-week period will be cancelled automatically . If you are a no-show a second time, you will not be allowed to make another appointment for a month and any pre-existing appointments will be cancelled for that one-month period. This policy exists to prevent appointment slots from "going to waste" when other clients need them.