We work with all NUS undergraduate and graduate students. Anyone who wants to talk to a consultant about communication skills, presentations, or writing assignments can make an appointment with us.

We recommend that you sign up for an appointment in advance, as we cannot guarantee that students dropping in will see a consultant immediately, especially during peak periods at the end of the semester. In general, we recommend that you make an appointment two days in advance; however, during “peak” periods in the semester you should make an appointment 3-4 days ahead of time.

Make an appointment as soon as you can. You can always schedule multiple visits for different phases of the same assignment. For the early stages, bring your notes and ideas; as the assignment progresses you can make an appointment to discuss an outline or draft.

Appointments made in advance last for 25 minutes. Drop-in consultations last 15 minutes.

The service is free.

There won’t be a similar service online at this stage.

The consultants at the Writing and Communication Hub are advanced undergraduate and graduate students who have completed a training program through the Centre for English Language Communication. To learn more about them, click here.

Yes. If you’ve worked with someone at a certain stage of an assignment and would like to continue working with that consultant as the assignment progresses, then you can request him or her. You will need to amend your schedule to fit that of the consultant you request.

Before the consultation, you should look at the "How to Prepare for Your consultation" section of the website.

You should bring (1) two print copies of what you’ve written for discussion during the consultation. That way, you can take notes while your consultant reads through your paper. You can also bring a soft copy on a USB for the consultant to work on, while you take notes on a hard copy. (2) Bring a copy of the assignment question, topic and requirements as given by your instructor. This will help your tutor better understand your instructor’s goals.

You can still arrange an appointment, but ensure you bring notes and evidence of reading, as well as a good idea about what difficulties or concerns you have.

The goal of these consultations is to help you become a better writer in general through working on specific assignments. As such, consultants won't correct every error for you. Rather, we will help you to revise your work and correct your own mistakes by consulting your assignment, texts about writing, and your own intuition as a writer. In the process, we hope that you will become a better proof-reader. In addition, please see the section on "Writing and Communication Hub Policies."

If you know you have a specific, consistent grammatical mistake that will impede your reader’s understanding of your writing (subject-verb agreement, pronoun reference errors, incorrect comma usage, etc.), then bring it up with your tutor and they will do their best to teach you to identify these kinds of problem in your own writing. They will not, however, fix the problem for you!

Yes, but be sure to ask your instructor which referencing system he or she prefers. Different disciplines require different forms of citation.

Yes. Consultants can help with issues specific to group writing, such as transitions between sections written by individual group members and overall cohesion. All members of the group must be present at the appointment so that the consultant can speak with each student about his or her contribution.

Yes, we work with all NUS undergraduate and graduate students.

Yes, we can assist with scholarship and graduate school applications. Be sure to bring a copy of the relevant informational materials to your consultation.

Absolutely not! We expect to see first year students working on their first assignments and later year/graduate students completing thesis projects. For any student, it is a good idea to get an objective reader to review a writing assignment.

Not really. We expect lecturers to refer a number of students to us every semester because we believe that working with a peer writer provides an excellent opportunity for their students to improve their writing. Even experienced writers can do with a second opinion.

The consultations at the Writing Hub are confidential. We will report the date and time of the consultation to your instructor only if he or she requests it.