Southern Illinois University Edwardsville URL: http://www.siue.edu/IS/WRITING/ Published by: Instructional Services Department Last Updated: August 22, 2005 Contact: Webmaster © Copyright 2005, SIUE Online Writing Center

NOTE: Paper Submission via email does not, IN ANY WAY, replace a face-to-face tutoring session. We highly recommend you call or stop by to schedule an appointment rather than submit your work electronically. However, if you are a distance learner, or cannot physically come to the Center, then feel free to send your paper through this medium. Please realize though, that when you submit a paper via email there is no opportunity for a dialogue to develop between you and the reader; thus, our comments will be VERY brief and you may sometimes find them vague.

REMEMBER: We DO NOT edit or proofread! Present as many specific questions as you can.

To get assistance with a paper via e-mail, copy your text, paste it into an e-mail message, and send it to wcenter@siue.edu.

Also, as we do not edit or proofread, it is important to present as many SPECIFIC questions as you can. This does not mean you write, “please check over my paper for grammar issues.” Rather, you should write specifically: “please look at my first paragraph, should a comma be used in the second sentence; how about in the fourth paragraph, is my construction of the third sentence correct; do my transitions work between paragraphs?” etcetera.

It is possible to send your paper as an e-mail attachment if you are using Word (Office 2000). However, you should send a test attachment first (just type a few words and send it as an attachment so that we can insert comments and return it to you).

When we get your paper, we will schedule it for the next available appointment (which will vary in time, depending on how busy we are). E-mail sent after 2:00pm on Friday may not be checked until Monday. E-mail is not regularly checked on the weekends.

You can also call us to schedule an appointment and make sure the paper is sent to us before the scheduled time. However, if we fail to receive the paper in time, that session will have to be rescheduled. Remember that the servers at the university are sometimes slow at high traffic times, so allow plenty of time for the paper to arrive.

Include the following information:
Your name
Your instructor's name
The class (department & number)
The assignment (briefly describe it) -- VERY IMPORTANT!!

Your instructor will be informed that you received assistance from the Writing Center.

APPOINTMENTS FOR BOTH EMAIL AND FACE-TO-FACE TUTORING ARE SCHEDULED IN 30 MINUTE TIME BLOCKS

Problems we have had in the past:

• Student made an appointment but didn't send the paper.
  
  
• Student sent the paper in time but the server was slow & it was not delivered in time, so the appointment had to be rescheduled.
  
  
• Student called to make an appointment, but there weren't any available appointments before the paper was due.
  
  
• Student sent the paper in an incompatible format & we couldn't read it, or we could read it, but the student couldn't open the document we sent.
  
  
• Student made an appointment but didn't indicate to the person on the phone that it was for a paper that was to be e-mailed to us later, or we forgot to mark the paper as coming via e-mail, and so almost missed it. (We've taken measures to prevent this in the future.)
  
  
• Student sent a paper during break week, when we weren't open.
  Student sent a first draft in case we had time to review it (which we didn't) & then sent a revised draft, but we reviewed the first draft by mistake.
  
  
• As you can see, getting help via e-mail is fairly complicated. There's a high probability that some difficulty will occur. Please be patient and allow plenty of time. Remember that this process is not automated, so you're not going to get an instantaneous response.

Right now demand for assistance via e-mail is light, so we don't have many restrictions. However, if demand becomes heavier, we may have to limit this service.