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Online Writing Lab
Submit a Draft
Guidelines
NOTE: Due to unexpected staff shortages in the Writing Center, please allow at least 48 hours for a response to your online submission. If you have any questions, please email us.
Do not send your draft as an email attachment
In order for us to serve you as quickly as possible, please submit your draft using the form linked to at the bottom of the page. Drafts that are submitted as attachments will be returned unread.
Response Time
Tutors will respond to your submission within 24 hours, as a rule. If you send us a paper on Friday afternoon, we can't retrieve it until Monday morning, and you may not hear from us until Tuesday, depending on how busy we are. Also, mid-term and end-of-the-semester are busy times. We may not be able to respond to your submission so quickly then. But otherwise, we usually are able to respond the same day we receive your e-mail.
Draft Length
Drafts over six pages long cannot be processed by this Web site. If your draft is lengthy and complex, you must come to the Writing Center for a face-to-face conference.
Graduate Students: For assistance with a major paper (e.g., a master's thesis), please call us at 573-651-2159 and set up an appointment for a face-to-face conference.
Directions
On the submission page, you will be requested to write to the tutor (in the box provided), telling him or her what questions and concerns you have about your draft. The checklist below may help you determine what you want the tutor to focus on.
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Is the main idea (thesis) or purpose clear?
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Does anything need further explanation or description? Or is there something that doesn't seem relevant and should be omitted? If you are arguing a point, have you made a convincing case? Does the paper achieve the purpose you have in mind?
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Is the paper effectively organized? Are the supporting ideas or sections or stages clearly separate? Are they in the most effective order? Would the paper be easy to outline?
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Is there a sentence or passage that might confuse the reader?
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Is there a technical matter (in punctuation, grammar, word choice, documentation style, or something else) you are unsure about?
Note: You
will receive a response to your draft within 24 hours, usually sooner, barring some
unforeseen computer glitch. The Writing Center personnel do not work on
online submissions in the evenings or on weekends so a response will be delayed if you
send a draft late on Friday or during the weekend. Please allow yourself adequate
time to revise after receiving a response and before the final draft is due.
To submit your draft, click here.
© 2005-2008, Southeast Missouri State University
Last Updated 28 January 2008
by Dave Reinheimer