Written Feedback Appointments

In a Written Feedback Appointment, the consultant will read and respond to your work, and will return written feedback at the end of your appointment time. There is no live conversation with your consultant.

Making an appointment

To reserve a Written Feedback Appointment, log in to WCOnline, our online appointment system, and click on an open white box to reserve an appointment. The Writers Workshop has both undergraduate and graduate consultants, so selecting your university standing will help pair you with the right consultant. You can find more information about our consultants on our “Meet the Staff” page.

When you’ve selected a time slot, fill out the Appointment Form and upload your writing as a doc or docx file. You must upload your writing at least 30 minutes before the appointment. Your consultant will read and respond to your writing during the allotted appointment time. You’ll receive your consultant’s feedback at the end of the appointment period. For example, if you choose a slot of 3:00-4:00 p.m. CT, then you’ll receive written feedback by 4:00 p.m. CT.

Watch the video below for a step-by-step guide to making a Written Feedback Appointment!

Filling out the appointment form

Since Written Feedback Appointments involve no discussion between consultant and writer, it’s important that you provide details up-front about your assignment, your writing, and your hopes for the consultation in our Appointment Form. Please fill it out in detail:

  • Describe your writing task or assignment. You are encouraged to upload or link to assignment prompts, rubrics, or other relevant information.
  • Please consider that consultants can spend only 50 minutes reading and responding to your draft, so you should limit yourself to no more than 2-3 areas of concern. If your draft is particularly long, please note the specific sections of your draft on which you’d like the consultant to focus.
  • Consider including a few questions, comments, or highlights in the draft you are uploading. The consultant reading this draft can then respond even more directly to your concerns. However, please do not submit a draft with too many comments.
  • Tell us about any learning or technology accommodations or needs, such as larger or weighted fonts.

Uploading files & modifying appointment forms

  1. At least 30 minutes before the start of your appointment time, please upload your document(s).
  2. Go to the Writers Workshop website. 
  3. Click the “Make an Appointment” button, which is listed at the top of the webpage.
  4. This will take you to our WCOnline platform
  5. After you log-in, you will see a drop-down menu at the top of the webpage to select the type of appointment. Select the “Written Feedback Appointments” in this drop-down menu.
  6. You will go to today’s date, under the consultant’s name, and click on your appointment slot.
  7. Then, your appointment form will pop up in a separate window. From here, scroll down to the bottom of the form and click “edit appointment.” (This option may no longer be available if you are within 30 minutes of your appointment time.)
  8. This option will allow you to edit your existing appointment. Scroll down to the bottom of this page, and at the bottom, there is a section to upload your files.
  9. From here, you can choose your file (up to 3 files, such as your paper and the assignment prompt). Please upload your file(s) as .doc or .docx files. 
  10. Consultants will review your document during your 50-minute time slot and re-upload your document with their feedback attached. You will receive two emails: one with the consultant’s overall comments, and another to access your file.
  11. Ensure your file has been successfully uploaded or your appointment will be marked missed. You should be able to see your file at the bottom of your appointment form.

 

Receiving feedback

At the end of your appointment hour, you will receive two emails from WCOnline. One contains what we call a Client Report Form, where the consultant will provide an overview of their feedback. The other email will include your draft with the consultant’s marginal comments. The Client Report Form and commented-on draft are meant to be read together.

As you review your consultant’s comments, we encourage you to remember that feedback is based on the information you provided and the concerns expressed in your Appointment Form. Our consultant  has only 50 minutes to read and respond to your work, and so typically will comment on 2-3 main concerns.

Just a note: the consultants can only upload one file once they are done reviewing your work. Therefore, they may combine your documents into one file or send you an additional email with any remaining files.

Policies

We hope that Written Feedback Appointments make our services more accessible to students who might have difficulty attending our live consultations due to issues like different time zones or unstable internet connections.

Students are limited to 1 Written Feedback Appointments per week. You can reserve your appointment up to 10 days in advance. If you need to cancel, please do so at least 30 minutes before the scheduled appointment.

The file(s) you upload to WCOnline will need to be doc or docx files. Files must be 5MB or smaller. If you are working with another file format, like PDF or Google Docs, you will need to convert to doc or docx. Typically this function will be in the “File” dropdown of the program. In Adobe Acrobat, for example, you can convert a PDF to a doc by going to File -> Export To and choosing “Microsoft Word.” On Google Drive, you can download your Google doc as a Word doc by going to File -> Download and choosing Microsoft Word (docx.).

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