"Could you take a look?" is not a request a teaching assistant can finish in office-adjacent time. It asks them to choose the scope, the standard, and the length of the reply. Most will defer. The ones who answer will write you a vague encouragement that does not change the paper.
Ask for a review. Name the object, the kind of defects you want found, and a cap on the effort. Then mark every claim you did not actually check.
Review is a shape, not a tone
A review hunts defects in something already built. A decision would ask them to pick a grade or a topic. An opinion would ask whether the argument feels interesting. If you want pages marked up, say review.
The engineering version of this ask is a technical design review: scope, kind of read, time cap, honest deadline. The school version is the same list. Section 2 only, not the whole seminar paper. Argument soundness, or method, or whether the thesis is actually in the first paragraph — pick one. "About forty minutes, not a line edit." A date after which you will submit anyway.
Silence is an allowed answer. Say so. Declining a favour should not require a paragraph of guilt.
Show the work you want corrected
Arrive with a position. "I think the case study in section 2 does the argument, and I am least sure about the third paragraph's claim that the statute applies." That is something a TA can shoot. "Is this any good?" is a blank page.
Label assumptions. If the assistant inferred a holding from a case you have not read, the label is what stops the TA from spending the hour on a fiction. Provenance is for this exact failure: fluent sentences that are not yours.
Do not paste the chat in which you drafted. They were not in it. Give the section, the question, and the two options you already rejected.
Send a briefing they can answer from email
You draft with your assistant. You read the package. You confirm the send. A request that uses your name is not auto-mailed.
They do not need an account. Email and a link are enough. People who already have RelayLink accounts need an accepted contact. Writing to someone who is not on the service is ordinary mail.
No attachments. Put the draft where the course already shares files, and put the review ask in the briefing. A file in the wrong place is how the ask disappears.
Nicknames stay private unless you share them. Write the name they use on the course page.
If they block you, you will not be told. Submit on the date you named.
When the section is small enough to review in the time you offered, connect your assistant and ask for defects rather than warmth.