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. Due to an unusually large backlog of
submitted papers, response time will be significantly slower for the next
week or two. If you need a prompt response, please come in person to
the Writing Lab if possible (Kent Library 412). 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
As a rule of thumb, we ask that you limit online submissions
to about 2000 words. If your draft is lengthy and complex, you should come to
the Writing Lab for a face-to-face conference. Longer papers can be
handled online, but turn around time will be longer, and some issues may
still require face-to-face assistance.
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.
-
Is the main idea (thesis) or purpose clear?
-
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?
-
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?
-
Is there a sentence or passage that might
confuse the reader?
-
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 Lab 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.
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