The English Language Institute offers a Writing Tutor for University of Chicago College Core students with ESL/EAL needs.
UChicago GRAD now offers a Writing Tutor for Graduate Students.
The ESL/EAL College Core Writing Tutor is affiliated with the Writing Program.
College Core Students
UChicago College Core students can make an appointment.
The day of the tutoring session, the tutor will email the Zoom link and will ask for a copy of your writing.
Once the session begins, you have 5 minutes to join the Zoom call. If you do not join the Zoom call after 5 minutes have passed, the tutor will mark you as a No-Show, and then they will invite people off the Drop-In List to take your spot.
Cost: Free
Location: Online via Zoom
Non-College Core Affiliates
NOTE: The Drop-In List opens 30 minutes before the tutor's shift begins
UChicago Non-College Core affiliates (other undergraduates, grad students, postdocs, etc.) can sign up to get on the Drop-In List.
During scheduled tutoring hours, the tutor will email people on the Drop-In List if there is no appointment scheduled or if there is a No-Show. You have 5 minutes to join the Zoom call once they email you, so please monitor your email.
Cost: Free
Location: Online via Zoom
Tutoring Rules
NOTE: The Writing Tutor is not permitted to edit/proofread student work directly, but can identify issues or patterns of error. The tutor also may not review more than 10 pages of text (Times New Roman font, size 12, double-spaced) in a session.
The ESL/EAL College Core Writing Tutor can:
- Discuss the specifications of an upcoming writing assignment
- Assist in selecting the appropriate wording/phrasing
- Identify patterns of error in grammar and punctuation
- Provide tips on producing greater sentence variety
- Identify instances of ambiguity
- Comment on an essay’s organization and information flow
- Provide tips on including North American stylistic features to an essay
- Help evaluate and integrate sources or cited literature
- Discuss voice, formality, and tone of an essay
- Provide self-editing tips and direct students to helpful writing resources
Calendar of Tutoring Sessions
Meet our Tutors!
Abigail Hill
Abigail comes from Tennessee and is now in Boston pursuing her PhD. She loves tutoring writing because she enjoys helping students understand and implement writing concepts and supporting them to be more confident in their writing ability.
She graduated from UChicago's MAPSS program in August 2020 with a concentration in History. Her research focused on the ways in which early modern authors crafted narratives about supernatural occurrences in order to support the credibility of their claims.
Yuri Helal
Yuri is a writer and literary scholar with experience in teaching English as a second language. She’s passionate about writing whether it’s essays, journals, or fiction, and became a tutor to help others improve their own. She’s interested in understanding the processes we all intuitively practice when we write, and using this to become more active and intentional writers. She graduated from UChicago’s MAPH program in summer 2025. Her thesis was on the treatment of women, and gender dynamics more broadly, in film adaptations of Frank Herbert’s Dune. Her research interests include 20th century sci-fi, visual storytelling, gender studies, and fandom and pop culture.
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