English wRIting Consultant (ERIC)

Announcement: ERIC consultations are held online (as of March, 2023)

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, all ERIC consultations have been held online (since April 2020). Please book your consultation using the online booking system below. Details on how to participate in online consultations will be emailed to you upon booking. We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your understanding.

What is ERIC?

ERIC is a team of University of Tokyo international students who are hired and trained to provide writing tips and feedback on scientific English publications and career documents for UTokyo students and staff.

In principle, consultations last 30 minutes, and you can have up to 2 consultations for the same document. Since the ERIC team will probably not be able to go through the whole paper with you, please specify on which parts you need advice or feedback. Also, if you have a deadline, please let us know when you need to submit the document by.

*ERIC is NOT a proofreading service. The purpose of ERIC consultations is to help you become better writers. For proofreading, please seek professional help and/or use grammar checkers like Grammarly, Writefull, etc.

Consultation Schedule and Venue:

Schedule

• Tuesdays 17:00-17:30, 17:30-18:00
• Thursdays 17:00-17:30, 17:30-18:00

*In the holiday periods the office days and hours may change depending on the availability of the ERIC team.

Venue

We hold our consultations at the Library Plaza in the General Library. Library Plaza is located on the annex B1 floor of the General Library.

Currently, ERIC consultations are only being held online.

How to Use the ERIC Service

STEP 1: Book your consultation online

STEP 2: Send your document

Email the document* you want ERIC to review at “eric.seut[at mark]gmail.com” at least 48 hours before your consultation. We will cancel your consultation if we do not receive your document in time. You may receive TAs’ feedback via email before the consultation, but we cannot guarantee that, as it depends on various factors such as TAs’ availability or length and complexity of the document.

*If possible, please send your document in word files, so we can use the comment function. If you have written the original document using LaTeX, you can send us the pdf file or send us the content you want us to check in word format.

STEP 3: Come see ERIC (Online)

Have a consultation with ERIC TAs.

～Consultation Flow～
1. Warm welcome by one or two TAs
2. Self-introduction
3. Time for you to ask questions about the document (if any)
4. Feedback on your document by TA 1
5. (Feedback on your document by TA 2)
6. Questionnaire

Terms and Conditions

• ERIC has the right to cancel clients’ consultations when observing clients’ inappropriate behaviors and misuse of service (e.g., canceling consultations multiple times without informing us, not sending the document in time, seeking a proofreading service, occupying multiple consultation slots).
• ERIC TAs may not be familiar with your field of research. If you want to receive feedback on the content of the document or if you do not want to discuss anything related to the content of the document with non-experts, please seek help from your supervisors and/or lab members.

Teaching Assistants

• ERIC Teaching Assistants
• English Learning Resources Recommended by the ERIC TAs
• How to Improve Academic Presentation
• Common Writing Mistakes
• Writing Career Documents
• Other Resources

Contact Us

If you have any questions about ERIC, feel free to contact us using the email below.

eric.seut[at]gmail.com (please change [at] to @)