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Virtual Writing Center

 

Welcome to the Virtual Writing Center

The VWC provides free peer feedback on writing for Antioch University students. We support your writing process from start to finish!

  • Outlining and Planning: Submit your outlines and notes for feedback on ideas.
  • Major Revision: Submit your initial drafts, and even incomplete drafts, for big picture feedback on thesis, structure, organization, integration of sources, and so on.
  • Minor Revision: Submit your 2nd or 3rd drafts to work on paragraph structure, clarity, conciseness, syntax, and other sentence-level feedback.
  • Style and Polish: Submit your near-final drafts for suggestions about APA or MLA, word choice, grammar, and other procedural edits.

To take advantage of peer feedback from the VWC, just click the login link for your campus or program under “Submit Your Writing” on the right (bottom on mobile). Also check out “About the VWC” below to learn more about the feedback process.

Have questions about the process or technical issues submitting? Contact us by email or voicemail! Email us at [email protected], or leave us a voicemail at 937.769.1355.

Page art by Julie Fortney, VWC Peer Consultant

Announcements: Workshops and COVID-19 Response

Shared Writing Center and Library Workshops: all the campus Writing Centers, the Virtual Writing Center, and the Antioch Libraries now offer various virtual workshops to all students via Zoom. These include topics from APA Style to designing presentations to organizing your research to framing your writing, and more! We regularly email students with registration info and upcoming workshop lists, more or less monthly.

If you haven’t received information and are interested in upcoming workshops, just send us an email and we can share everything currently scheduled along with registration information.

COVID-19: We are operating as normal during the pandemic; response times are typically around 48 hours but may be longer over holidays or if staff need time away. We will get you feedback even if it takes a little longer. Thanks for your patience, and stay safe!

How to Submit Your Work

Woman on couch with laptop
Use the “Submit Your Writing” menu on the top right (desktop) or bottom (tablet and mobile) to access the VWC system and send in your work for comments. For details about parts of the process, check out the links below:

New Resources: Virtual Sessions, Literature Reviews, and Video Presentations

This resource offers a few tips for an effective virtual session:

Nearly all Antioch University programs transitioned to APA 7th Edition as of January 2020. Below are three resources to help you understand the new Student Writing guidelines, and the specific changes in 7th Edition as compared to 6th Edition:

The Writer’s Toolkit: In a Nutshell

When I brainstorm, I grasp at every possible association to the prompt, assembling a scattered constellation of ideas. Until recently, my next step was to force all the sparks I had discovered into the too-small container of a blank document. I’d squeeze in anything and everything that came to mind, and soon my constellation was just the whole night sky. There’s a better way to chart the stars, however.

Tired of cutting down bloated supernova papers, I’ve started approaching each assignment with a nutshell in mind. In other words, I figure out how to encapsulate the essence of the piece in one simple sentence. Back in drama school, a professor used to have us nutshell scripts. We started with, “This is the story of…”, and we had until the end of the sentence to complete the thought. Unsurprisingly, the result was always short and sweet.

Once I can nutshell an essay, I’ve established a north star for my outline. Does everything fit inside the nutshell, or do some ideas bust it wide open? Does my constellation shine brightly against a dark sky, or do tangents blur the focus like so much light pollution?

Prompts can engender an astronomical amount of content, but not every idea makes the cut when I compose a paper. Fun facts? Sidenotes? Bonus anecdotes? They have to go. (Yes, even if they’re really, really, really interesting.) I can’t take the scenic route; I have to prioritize saying what I mean.

Brainstorming is still unwieldy, and it always will be. That process can hold galaxies. Such uninhibited expansiveness doesn’t need to bleed into my drafts, however. I package ideas more economically now, tucking them into small-but-mighty nutshells for maximum effect. The right nutshell always burns bright enough to light up the whole night sky.

photo of Vero Lecocq tilting her head to the right and smiling at the camera

Vero Lecocq
Virtual Writing Center Peer Consultant
Antioch University

The Writer’s Toolkit Archives:
Tips from the VWC Staff

Visit the VWC Writer’s Toolkit Archive

Welcome back! Please check your e-mail regularly for updates specific to your courses and campus, and view helpful resources and Coronavirus updates.

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