EIU Electronic Writing Portfolio: Faculty FAQ
What does effective writing demonstrate?
- awareness of specific audiences, purposes, genres, disciplines, and professions
- cogent and defensible applications, analyses, evaluations, and arguments about problems, ideas, and issues
- clear, well-organized, focused, and cohesive arguments
- appropriate vocabulary, mechanics, grammar, diction, and sentence structure
- analysis and synthesis of complex textual, numeric, and graphical sources
- evaluation of evidence, issues, ideas, and problems from multiple perspectives
- ethical use of source materials and clear understanding of their strengths and limitations
- works cited page (does not count towards the 750-word minimum)
What constitutes eligible paper submissions?
- Two submissions are required for the portfolio.
- Papers may come from any writing-centered or writing-intensive course, OR from any other undergraduate course for which students have completed an appropriate writing assignment.
- Only one submission is allowed from any one course.
- If a student submits from ENG 1001G/1091G, the student may not submit from ENG 1002G/1092G.
- Before EWP submission, it is a good idea for a student to discuss plans to submit with the instructor. Instructors have the right to indicate a particular course or assignment is not appropriate for submission.
What are the paper requirements?
- at least 750 words in length, approximately 3 pages (NOTE: title pages and citations pages are not included in the minimum word count)
- written by a single student, exclusively; no group project papers
- written in English
- written in a manner consistent with the demands of the discipline for which it was written
- written as a coherent argument that connects ideas within and between paragraphs; NO lists, outlines, lesson plans and other such documents
- NO creative pieces, such as poems, short stories, or plays
What can I require from students prior to submission?
- Faculty may require students to provide a hard copy or the graded/marked copy of the paper prior to submission.
- You may also require students to consult with you; students are encouraged to do so.
- You may tell students which assignments are appropriate for submission to the EWP.
- It is a good idea to include these and any other requirements on your syllabus and/or assignment sheets.
What if a student submits the wrong paper?
If there is an issue with a submission—the student submits a paper that was not written for your class or one that you said was not appropriate—please contact ewp@eiu.edu and alert us to the issue. We will contact the student and remove the paper.
What is the deadline?
- All papers must be submitted the semester a student is enrolled in a course: deadlines schedule.
- Students may not submit papers for courses after the semester ends.
- Faculty members may set their own deadlines in their courses. On your ratings page, click "Deadlines" (calendar icon button) in the left-hand menu and set a custom deadline.
- If you do establish a deadline, please alert the EWP office at ewp@eiu.edu and include this deadline on your syllabus or assignment sheet.
How will I rate papers?
- All ratings will be done online. The deadline for ratings is usually one week after finals week.
- Automatic emails will be sent each week to all faculty who have papers to rate; however, you may log in to the system at any time to check for papers to read.
- Simply click on the link provided or follow the link from the assessment page.
- Submissions may be rated on a scale from superior to unsatisfactory.
- The suggested EWP rubric is available here.
How will my ratings be used?
- Ratings will be used to determine how well students write. Ratings are used for university assessment, with results published in an annual report.
- Students whose submissions are primarily “superior” will be given a “writes with distinction” designation on the transcript. This requires an overall average score of 3.75.
