Victoria College Writing Centre
The Victoria College Writing Centre's highly experienced instructors can teach students how to improve their writing in confidential one-on-one appointments.
Open during the Fall, Winter, and Summer sessions.
Appointments are currently being offered Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. in person at our new office on the second floor of the Goldring Student Centre (GSC230) and online.
Eligibility: Registered Victoria College and Emmanuel College students (for any coursework) or students from other colleges seeking help with assignments from a Vic program course only (VIC, CRE, LCT, EDS, MCS, REN, STS).
If you have any questions about the Centre or your appointment, please contact us directly at vic.writing@utoronto.ca.
What we do:
Instructors help you develop your capacity to plan, organize, write, and revise your essays, reviews, lab reports, case studies, and other academic assignments. They can also assist with creative writing assignments and graduate school personal statements and admission letters.
Students can bring in assignment sheets and rough drafts, partial drafts, or notes—no need to have a complete or polished draft.
Instructors can help you with your own writing and editing but are not there to edit or proofread your paper for you.
Booking appointments:
- Appointments are 50 minutes long and start 10 minutes after the hour (like UofT classes).
- Students may sign up for one appointment per week and up to three appointments at any time. Appointments fill up quickly—book well in advance of assignment due dates!
- If appointments aren't available at their preferred time, students can put their names on the waiting list and they will be notified if an appointment becomes available.
- Check back frequently, as appointment times are added and spots open up throughout the week.
Get the most out of your appointment:
- Appointments fill up quickly—book well in advance of assignment due dates!
- Leave yourself ample time to do revisions after the consultation.
- Bring in your assignment instruction sheet and other course material to help define your aims for the paper.
- Bring a hard copy of your work or upload a copy of your draft or Google Docs link through the WC Online system. Instructors will not look at assignments from your laptop.
- Book multiple appointments to work on a sequence of skills in a variety of assignments.
- Consider working with multiple writing instructors for a different perspective.
Cancellation Policy:
If you need to cancel an appointment, please do so as soon as possible but at least 24 hours in advance. This will allow other students to get an appointment with an instructor sooner. Failing to cancel your appointment within the required time or simply not showing up to your scheduled appointment will result in you being blocked from booking further sessions.
Writing Plus Workshops & Research and Writing Seminars
The St. George Campus College Writing Centres, in collaboration with University of Toronto Libraries, Career Exploration & Education, English Language Learning, and Academic Success, are offering this campus-wide series of academic skills workshops to the University’s entire student body. All workshops are free and there is no need to pre-register. Come for one, or come for all!
All the workshops are offered several times in the year, so check both Saturday and weekday schedules to find times that suit you.
The Victoria College Writing Centre also offers Research and Writing Seminars in collaboration with E. J. Pratt Library. Each session in the suite of four interactive seminars integrates the learning of academic research and writing skills and is taught by a librarian in collaboration with a writing instructor. The goal of each seminar is to help you develop your own voice as an emerging scholar by enabling you to identify, situate and substantiate your arguments in the context of the scholarly discussion taking place in your discipline.
Writing Centre Instructors
For more information on our writing centre instructors click below.
Alexia Hannis
A humanities scholar and a generalist at heart, Alexia Hannis has been helping students think and write at their best for over a decade. An experienced university instructor, she received her M.A. in English from Queen’s University and her Ph.D. in Communication (Philosophy, Art, and Critical Thought) from the European Graduate School where she completed her dissertation under the direction of Christopher Fynsk. Past honours include the Bruce Harkness Young Scholar Award from the Joseph Conrad Society of America. Alexia's articles and reviews have appeared in English Studies in Canada, Conradiana, and Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy. Her first book, The Discerning Narrator: Conrad, Aristotle, and Modernity was published with the University of Toronto Press (2023), and a new essay on Conrad and nature is forthcoming in The Routledge Companion to Joseph Conrad (2024). Alexia's current projects include a public philosophy essay on Virginia Woolf's subversive pursuit of the truth; an article on Joseph Conrad and love; and research on the relationship between Socratic dialogue and one-to-one writing instruction. Alexia enjoys supporting writers from all disciplines and at any point in their development or process. She is looking forward to connecting with as many Vic students as possible this term.
Jaclyn Piudik
Jaclyn Piudik is an educator, poet, medievalist and a long-time writing instructor and learning strategist. She received her M.A. in Creative Writing and English Literature from the City College of New York, and an M.A. and a collaborative Ph.D. in Medieval Studies and Jewish Studies from the University of Toronto. Her scholarly interests are in language, literature, translation and the written word in general. An award-winning author of two poetry collections, To Suture What Frays (Kelsay 2017) and Seduction: Out of Eden (a collaborative work) as well as three chapbooks, most recently the corpus undone in the blizzard (Espresso 2019), her writing has also been published in numerous anthologies and literary journals. Jaclyn is eager to help the students at Victoria College to realize their potential as writers across the disciplines.
Patti Luedecke
Patti completed her Ph.D. in English at Western University in 2019 and her most recent essays appear in Studies in American Naturalism and the Edith Wharton Review. She has enjoyed teaching American literature at UTM. Before joining U of T as a writing instructor last year, Patti taught as both an assistant and lead writing instructor at Huron University College’s writing centre. She looks forward to helping Victoria College writers in any academic field to develop practical habits for both composing and editing.
Michael Lapointe
Dr. Michael Patrick Lapointe joined the University of Toronto in 2005 as an Academic Writing Tutor and as a Sessional Lecturer in Woodsworth College’s Academic Bridging Program, where he regularly teaches courses entitled Media, Culture and Society, the Introduction to the Study of Literature, and Contemporary Canada. Dr. Lapointe received his Ph.D. in English from the University of British Columbia. His research background includes Irish Literature, James Joyce, Nationalism Studies, Queer Studies, 20th Century Canadian and European history, Theory, and Professional Communication. Dr. Lapointe is TESL Canada and TESL Ontario certified and has several teaching awards and nominations to his credit.