Peer Review | Edited Guide Writing Workshop | Alternative Writing Workshop
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Welcome to the Alternative Writing Workshop. This is the review forum for writing which is experimental, creative, opinionated, in first person or which falls outside the Writing Guidelines for the Edited Guide in some other way. The Alternative Writing Workshop is a great place to submit entries for fellow researchers to read and comment on. If you're used to Peer Review, then you may find the Alternative Writing Workshop hauntingly familiar, and yet refreshingly new in strange and wonderful ways. We like to think of ourselves as 'yang' to Peer Review's 'yin'... or is it the other way around?

Why the Alternative Writing Workshop?

Simply submitting your entry to the Alternative Writing Workshop will bring it to a wider audience than leaving it for people to stumble upon with the search engine. The Alternative Writing Workshop is also frequented by researchers on the lookout for entries to feature in the various alternative sections of H2G2 including:

• The Post - The Post doesn't have a major presence in the workshops but they do get tipped off about entries here. The Post's editors feature just about anything that appeals to them. This sometimes includes entries with material which, for reasons of BBC policy, must be more than one-click away from the front page of the site or which the BBC cannot be seen to endorse officially.

• AGG/GAG/CAC - AGG/GAG/CAC¹ are the Anarchists' Anarchists. They publish a column in the Post when it seems like a good thing to do. Unlike the Post and the UnderGuide, both of whom create nice clean versions of an entry with correct spelling and a standard look and feel, AGG/GAG/CAC will often link directly to your original entry, warts and all, unmindful of later changes or fix-ups.

• The UnderGuide - The UnderGuide provides a parallel outlet to the Edited Guide for excellent writing which for whatever reason does not fit the Writing Guidelines for the Edited Guide. The UG volunteers called 'Miners' are constantly trawling around in the Alternative Writing Workshop for good quality writing which falls within the UnderGuideLines. Entries picked or 'mined' for the UnderGuide will be featured with a link from the front page.

• Fiction Central - Fiction Central is a place where imagination knows few bounds and where you can join the legions from h2g2's illustrious past who have added to this fantastic archive of stories. Easily accessible just follow the link, and let your mind run wild.

• The Spaced Out Guide - The Spaced Out Guide (SOG) - The SOG is a collection of entries from anyone about anything. The entries have no criteria, and can be of any length, height or quality. In fact, if your entry is not picked by any of the above groups, it will be picked for the SOG.

• Removed by MineSweepers - The volunteers in each Review Forum will sometimes ask the H2G2 Editors to remove old entries from the forum, particularly ones from people who have not been active on the site for some time². This is part of keeping the forum manageable and is rarely a comment on the value of the entry itself. Entries may also be removed if they have been showcased by one of the above groups.

There are two ways to participate in the Alternative Writing Workshop:

1. Comment on an entry - You are invited to make comments on any entry by posting to the conversation threads below. Feel free to express opinions, relate impressions, or otherwise riff off whatever entry you've read and thought about. Simply saying "I have read this - thank you for posting it here" is a valuable thing for a writer: that way they do at least know that their work is being read. You can see more information on 'commenting' in The Alternative Writing Workshop further down this page.

2. Submit an entry - If you have created an entry³ which you want more people to see, or if you think someone else's entry is a must-read then you can submit the entry to the Alternative Writing Workshop. Remember, without entries, we don't exist! (See further down this page for more information on submitting entries to the Alternative Writing Workshop).

Important Note: The Alternative Writing Workshop welcomes entries that do not meet the Edited Guide's Writing Guidelines, so if you're used to Peer Review, you may find it a bit more... laid back here. We still ask for entries that are basically finished, and which are compliant with the House Rules, but as far as style and content, anything goes. Opinions, rants, ramblings, first-person accounts, poems, fictional fact, factual fiction, euphonious nonsense... all of these and more are welcome in the Alternative Writing Workshop. Given the quality of writing at h2g2, there are a lot of great entries here.

For a detailed explanation of the system of Review Forums, please read the Review Forums FAQ.

If you'd like to submit an entry to the Alternative Writing Workshop, please first be sure that it does not comply with the Edited Guide's Writing Guidelines. Your factual, well-researchered, authoritatively true and correct entries belong in the Edited Guide, and Peer Review is the place for them⁴. Your creative, experimental, personal pieces, may find a home in the UnderGuide - check out the UnderGuideLines. If these do not give you the freedom you require, don't panic. The Post, AGG/GAG/CAC and SOG will still consider your work, and all four groups pick from the AWW.

How to Comment in the Alternative Writing Workshop

The first step for commenting on AWW entries is to read them. This can be entertaining in a number of ways, and entries in the AWW are diverse and have many genres. Click on the title or the A-number in the list at the bottom of this entry and read on!

Once you've read the entry, don't click the 'Discuss this entry' link at the bottom of the page⁵ - Instead, click the 'Currently in the Alternative Writing Workshop' link on the right-hand side of the entry - this will take you to the review thread. You can add your comments there, as with any other conversation on h2g2, by clicking 'Reply' to any of the existing postings and typing your comment in the box.

Notes on Commenting

Before you comment on an entry in the Alternative Writing Workshop, consider the following points:

• Is it the author's first entry? (You can check their personal space to find out). If so, introduce them to the forum and be as gentle in your comments as you can.

• Be polite - Nettiquette is an important part of h2g2, and creative writing is a sensitive thing, so tread carefully, you may be treading on the author's dreams.

• If you like the entry - say so! Everyone likes compliments.

• Feel free to be comment on your emotional response - this is creative writing, and the ultimate test of a piece of creative writing is the emotions it evokes in the reader.

• Try to understand the author's intent in writing the entry. Some entries will be documentary or expository, others will be more poetic and free-form and may intentionally include non-standard usage. Clarity is important however. If an entry isn't clear to you, say so.

• Don't be afraid to challenge an author to improve their work, but please temper any criticisms with respect for the author as a creator, and as the final decision-maker about the entry.

• Don't just say that an entry is bad! If you don't like it, try to make your criticism specific and constructive. Not everyone is confident about grammar and spelling, so don't be a technical bully.

• Try not to worry too much about typos or spelling mistakes - if the entry is picked, there will be procedures for dealing with that sort of thing⁶. Concentrate on the content of the entry itself.

• Read the entire thread. Your point may already have been made and responded to, and conversations in the AWW can be lively and interesting in their own right.

• Stay subscribed to the thread; once you've commented, keep an eye on what others are saying. It may be the start of an interesting conversation.

• If an entry is picked for inclusion in the Post, AGG/GAG/CAC, UG or SOG, congratulate the author!

How to Submit an Entry to the Alternative Writing Workshop

To put an entry into the Alternative Writing Workshop, simply click on the 'Submit for Review' button on the entry itself, and follow the instructions, choosing the 'Alternative Writing Workshop' from the drop-down menu. If there is no 'Submit for Review' button, that's because you can't put that entry into a Review Forum: it might already be in a Review Forum, it might be an Edited or UnderGuide Entry, it might be someone's Personal Space, the author might not want it to be put in for review, or you might not be logged into the site⁷.

Once an entry is submitted to the Alternative Writing Workshop, a number of things may happen: if your entry is suitable for one of the publications above it may be picked by one or more of them. They each have their own processes and standards. See their home pages, linked above, for details.

Notes on Entry Submission

Before you put an entry into the Alternative Writing Workshop, please consider the following points:

• Please submit entries that are, as far as you are concerned, basically finished. You can submit works in development to the Writing Workshop or the Collaborative Writing Workshop.

• Remember, if your entry follows the Writing Guidelines for the Edited Guide, then you should submit it to Peer Review, not the Alternative Writing Workshop. We're looking here for great writing that is outside of the scope of the encyclopaedia-style Edited Guide. The UnderGuideLines apply only to the UnderGuide, and the AWW is even bigger than that.

• Respond to comments. If people have taken the time and trouble to comment on your entry then it is only polite to reply. Sometimes people miss the point of a creative piece on first reading, but replying shows other people that you are reading the thread, and it will encourage more people to enter the discussion.

Where Does Your Entry Go From Here?

The short answer is... nobody knows! If it is scouted by The Post Team, then it will appear in an upcoming edition of The Post, which is featured on the Front Page every week. Similarly, if it is chosen by one of the UnderGuide Miners, then it will go through a process similar to the Edited Guide editorial process, which ends with your entry being directly linked from the Front Page. Entries chosen by AGG/GAG/CAC are mentioned in and linked from AGG/GAG/CAC's page in the Post. Entries chosen by the SOG are added to one of the fastest growing collections of fictional entries on h2g2.

Each publication can only harvest so many entries per week or per month. It's not uncommon for an entry to stay in a review forum for a considerable time without being chosen by any particular publication, so patience is the best advice we can give!

What goes around comes around. While you are waiting for your entry to garner respsonses why not comment on other entries in the AWW: people are more likely to read and comment on your entry if you have read and commented on theirs.

If your entry has been chosen by one of the above publications, and you'd like to know what happens next, please visit the appropriate page, linked above.

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¹ the name looked like a good idea at the time
² "Elvis" authors - who have "left the building".
³ "An Entry" is a page with an A-number at the end of its web address. Personal Spaces, Journal Entries and Posts in conversations cannot be submitted to a Review Forum
⁴ To keep things orderly, Edited Guide-type entries submitted to the Alternative Writing Workshop may be moved to Peer Review.
⁵ Unless you wish to make a more personal comment to the author than you feel happy making on the general AWW thread.
⁶ unless there aren't
⁷ And of course, you cannot submit posts in conversations or journal entries to a Review Forum.