About the VWC

How to Submit Your Writing

If you have already used the system, just click the first link to login and submit.
If you have never used the VWC Submittable system, click the second link to create an account before you login. You must use your Antioch gmail address as the e-mail to submit to the VWC, and then your first and last name. Once you create an account, you can login to submit!

Login here to submit your work.   First time user? Click here to create an account!

After you upload your work, it goes into a queue where we respond to items in the order we receive them. Typically you’ll receive written feedback in less than 48 hours. When your paper is ready, we’ll send you an e-mail to let you know and you can log in again to download the response. You can resubmit the same assignment twice more for additional feedback as you revise.

Before Submitting a Draft:
We ask questions in the submission form to get a sense of your needs, but any additional information you provide really helps as we read your work. Here are a few ideas to consider:

  • If you have specific or time-sensitive questions, make a note of those in your submission form so that we can focus on what will help you the most.
  • Is this a final draft that you’re intending to submit for faculty review? If so, this is important information for your reader to know.
  • Consider where you are in the writing process and the type of support that would be most helpful. Would feedback on clarity of ideas and organization be most helpful? Do you need help with unifying your thesis? Or are you concerned about polishing your final draft?

Please Keep in Mind:

  • We endeavor to give feedback on all submissions in about 48 hours, but response times may be longer during busy parts of the semester.
  • If you are submitting a longer work, like a Thesis, Capstone, or Dissertation, please specify one section of 12 pages for us to look at each time (within a natural break whenever possible), and then apply the feedback throughout the whole document as appropriate before resubmitting. Please review our long submissions policy for details.

What to Expect

Once you submit your work, it goes into a queue where we respond to items in the order in which they are received. We try to give feedback within 48 hours; response times are often faster during less busy times, and may be slower during busy periods (especially for multiple or long submissions; see VWC Submission Policies below).
Once one of us has read your work and given feedback, you’ll get an e-mail letting you know when the response is complete, and then you can log back in and download the file with comments. You’ll find feedback in an introductory letter explaining overall points, comments embedded in the text in [bold and brackets], and some suggested Next Steps at the end.
Please be aware that we cannot give feedback using the track changes or comment functions in Microsoft Word. This is to ensure that our feedback is accessible on multiple operating systems and across different versions and types of writing software, particularly some software that accommodates disabilities.


How to Read Your Feedback

  • The person who reads your work will add an Intro Letter, some in-text comments, and some suggestions for Next Steps.
  • The Intro Letter will summarize our feedback and discuss major suggestions.
  • The In-text Comments (in [bold brackets]) will point out places to apply that feedback in your document, as well as give you an idea of how a reader responds to your work.
  • The suggestions for Next Steps will give you some brief ideas about how to move forward with your revisions.

Example of an Introductory Letter
Example of Comments Embedded in Text


Submission Policies

General Submissions Policy:
We review submissions in the order they are received, providing written feedback for up to 3 major areas and up to 12 pages of content per submission. We try to address your specific requests, but we may also point out additional global or sentence-level issues to be aware of as you revise. We strive to give written feedback no later than 48 hours after you submit (unless we’re exceptionally busy).

Submitting Revised Drafts:
You may resubmit up to two additional drafts for any given piece of writing. If you are submitting a revised draft and you have already received feedback from a peer or your professor, please submit a clean document without visible track changes or previous reviewer comments.
Before resubmitting, please take the first consultant’s response into consideration and do a substantive revision. If you resubmit shortly after receiving a response or without appearing to have considered the first consultant’s feedback, we will likely contact you with questions about whether that feedback made sense to you before responding, or encourage you to consider the first round of feedback before submitting again.
If you do submit second and third drafts, you will usually get feedback from a different person each time. This is because our staff are also students, and they are only free to work on a few days each week. However, having multiple perspectives and different styles of explanation will also help you develop your own style and aesthetics. Writing—including academic writing—requires a writer to make critical and creative decisions about how best to serve their purpose and audience.

Multiple Submissions Policy:
You may submit up to two different pieces of writing for review each week, with up to three total drafts of each piece. Please note that if you submit more than two different assignments in a given week, priority will be given to other students who have not yet had the opportunity to receive feedback. For assignments beyond the first two, we may give you feedback with a longer response time, or, if our usage is high, we may not respond to additional submissions.

Long Submissions Policy:
Peer consultants will review up to 12 pages of content in a given submission. If you would like feedback on a paper with more than 12 pages of content, especially a capstone, thesis, or dissertation, please follow the steps below:

  1. Consider the areas where feedback would be most helpful for you; e.g., “I would like feedback on the clarity of my purpose, and how well I organize information for my audience.”
  2. Specify a particular section where the consultants can focus their comments to best meet your needs. For example, “I would like you to start giving feedback at the beginning of the discussion section.” If you don’t specify a different place to start, the consultant will begin on the first page.
  3. Apply the feedback you receive throughout the document. In other words, revise other sections of your paper to incorporate the same suggestions (not every suggestion will apply in every section, but most apply to other places–for example, if you get feedback about very long sentences, look for those in the rest of your document before you resubmit).
  4. You may request support for a specific section of a long document and send in only that section if the rest is still in rough draft or outline form, but please do NOT break a long document into pieces and send in all the pieces at once as separate submissions. This overloads our staff and makes it difficult to give our time equally to all student writers.

Please note that larger pieces of work are more complex and take longer to review, so response times for these pieces may be up to 72 hours, especially during high-volume weeks in the VWC.

Professional Editing:
For editing of “project writing” (dissertations, theses, capstone projects, etc.), Antioch University has developed an online professional support center, The Writers’ Exchange, to provide professional editing and proofreading, with discounted rates for AU students and alumni.
The Writers’ Exchange, or WEX, has a staff of professional editors, proofreaders, and writing coaches with expertise in a variety of academic and professional writing and format styles.  These writing specialists have the qualifications to examine and polish your writing thoroughly and expertly, and can also provide services we do not offer through peer support (such as professional style editing and proofreading). They are also available to work on entire dissertations and theses, something that is prohibitively time-consuming otherwise.

Should you be interested in professional review of your writing, go to wex.antioch.edu for more complete information about our services.

Confidentiality:
All VWC administrators and work-study staff are bound by FERPA and will not communicate with other students or with anyone outside the University about you specifically or the content of your submissions.
Within the VWC, all work-study staff potentially have access to your submissions, since the person who responds to a first draft, for example, may not be the same person who responds to the second. However, it is VWC policy that none of the work-study staff communicate about you or your work outside of the VWC–that includes your faculty.
FERPA does allow VWC administrative staff (the Director or Coordinator) to communicate with faculty or other University staff about a particular writer or their work, with the goal of better supporting that writer. This is usually only when someone is in need of extra support, and we do not contact faculty to provide, for example, confirmation of using the VWC.


Live Consultations

Wish you could discuss your writing from the comforts of your home? You can! The VWC offers 1-hour live consultations with peer writing consultants through Zoom.
These sessions provide the benefit of talking through a writing issue with another person. Most sessions are for developmental support around academic writing, such as:

  • Defining a thesis, focus, or purpose for your writing
  • Understanding an assignment and beginning to plan a piece
  • Learning how to interpret and integrate source material
  • Refining your ideas and supporting evidence
  • Reverse outlining and restructuring a paper
  • Discussing the needs of a particular audience

Virtual Peer Writing Consultation Policies
The VWC is committed to supporting the entire Antioch student population. However, because our peer consultants are also students with demands on their time, we request that you observe the policies below when requesting a session:

  • You may request one session per week to work on any one of the issues above.
  • Meetings are by appointment only, and available days and times may vary depending on staff schedules.
  • To request an appointment, sign in to the VWC in Submittable and then select the “Request a Live Session” form.
  • It usually takes 2-4 days to arrange a session, depending on which staff are available to meet–if you send your request Friday night, for example, it will likely be Monday afternoon before we can finalize a time that works.

Should you need more intensive writing coaching or professional support, that service is available through the Writers’ Exchange at wex.antioch.edu.
Note: all VWC services are exclusive to AU students.

Face-to-face Writing Consultations
You can also contact your campus writing center for in-person, phone, or Zoom writing support:

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