UWP Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

You are welcome to submit any kind of writing that you believe showcases your abilities to write at the college level. This might look like a research paper or an argumentative paper, but it could also look like a case study, a literature review, an infographic with a cover letter, a business letter or memo, a lab report (as long as it contains an introduction, lit review, discussion, and/or conclusion section), a financial analysis, a design proposal, or a how-to manual. We recommend that you look for a piece of writing with 500 words or more, but it is not a requirement.

In the submission site, you will be asked to tell the readers about the writing you selected for the UWP and to reflect on the writing in the context of your major and your future career. If you have chosen to submit writing that is specific to your discipline and may be unfamiliar to your UWP readers, be ready to explain in greater detail what the writing shows about your abilities. Regardless, be sure that you can explain your choices.

Ask yourself a few questions when selecting your writing for the UWP: Am I particularly proud of this piece of writing? What does this writing highlight in terms of my strengths as a writer and a communicator? Does this writing show what I am capable of as a college student? What does this writing show about my readiness for upper-division writing or writing in my future career?

If you submitted an incomplete portfolio by accident, it will be re-routed, and you will be notified to add materials. An incomplete portfolio submission may delay your final evaluation. Contact us if you have any questions.

We do not recommend submitting more than one paper from the same course, but it is allowed as long as you do not submit the same paper twice. Specifically, your goal in putting together this portfolio is to demonstrate your abilities as a college writer, not as a writer for a specific course or within a certain genre.

You may submit a group assignment as long as the portion you wrote is highlighted, and your answers to the reflection questions are thorough and clearly related to the sections you indicated as your own. It must be clear to the reader which sections are attributed to you.

We are happy to work with transfer students individually if they are concerned about the portfolio or about their options for papers to showcase. In these situations, email us to discuss delaying the portfolio submission for a single semester.

Transfer students with 60+ credits will see a registration hold during their second semester of classes at WSU. Transfer students will never need to submit a portfolio before they start classes at WSU.

Transfer students are welcome to submit their work from other institutions. As long as they wrote the paper for a college-level course (AP, for example, counts for college credit but is not a college-level course), we will accept it in the UWP.

You are welcome to submit papers that you wrote for a class at a different institution as long as you wrote it for a college-level course. Papers written for AP courses in high school are not accepted. Papers written for dual enrollment courses (such as Running Start) are accepted.

Within Slate, you will be asked to tell the reader about “original prompts”—the assignments or instructions for each paper you include. You do not need to reach out to your professors to locate the original instructions or grades for these assignments; rather, do your best to describe the prompt or instructions from memory. You are welcome to copy and paste the instructions—or parts of it—if you do have the original assignment.

One purpose of the UWP is to gauge whether students are developing the foundation of writing skills necessary for upper-division courses.

The registration hold at 60 credits signifies a “due date” for the portfolio and ensures students are assessed at the accurate point in their college experience. The hold establishes a timeline so that graduation is not delayed because of the UWP.

The registration hold is removed by the Writing Program when a student submits the portfolio. Because of the reasons explained above, the Writing Program rarely removes holds without submission of the portfolio, and does not allow for temporary releases on holds for course registration.

Transfer students and nontraditional students should contact the Writing Program if they experience obstacles in submitting their portfolio.

Portfolio results will be available approximately four to six weeks after you’ve submitted your portfolio.

Results can be found in myWSU; we do not send emails about results. Portfolios evaluated as “completed” will result in an updated milestone, whereas portfolios evaluated as “in progress” show a need for writing support and yield a service indicator called Writing Portfolio Req. This indicator can be expanded to show the required 1-credit course (WRITE 302) resulting from the portfolio evaluation. All students will receive a notice in My.Wsu explaining their results, commenting on their writing, and noting any further requirements. If you cannot read your notice, please email the Writing Program with your student information (Name and ID#) and we can provide you with your results.

If you are dissatisfied with your results, you have 3 options. Your request must be received within 180 days of the notice of your portfolio results.

You may only choose one of the following avenues:

You may write a formal letter of appeal to our Portfolio Appeals Committee. We recommend that your letter include explanation of why you selected the two papers and what they show about your abilities as a writer. You might consider those papers in the context of your discipline, future career, or progress so far as a writer. Your letter should also include background information including your major, the term in which you submitted the portfolio originally, and the courses that assigned the two papers you included. Think carefully about your purpose and your audience as you write your letter of appeal. Hastily submitting a portfolio to release a hold does not constitute grounds for an appeal.

Email your appeal letter to writing.program@wsu.edu as an email attachment (must be either PDF, .doc, or docx). We do not accept Google Docs or Microsoft OneDrive documents that require a login to access. The subject line should read “UWP Appeal Letter,” your full name, and WSU ID#.

You may enroll in the required course. A positive service indicator will remain on your account until you’ve successfully completed the course and will be released after final grades have been posted. This service indicator does not prevent you from registering for courses. All assigned courses are 1-credit, pass or fail, and designed to be supportive of the writing you’re doing in other classes.

You can submit a second University Writing Portfolio with different writing samples than ones you previously submitted. Should you choose this option, a $50 writing portfolio fee will be applied to your account to assist with the evaluation of your second submission. You must email the Writing Program before you submit a second portfolio so that your submission is not automatically discarded.

We appreciate that many of you completed the timed write in a previous semester and we recognize that many of you will be frustrated to know that this document is no longer a necessary or viable component for the University Writing Portfolio. Following the pandemic, all aspects of the UWP are digital and accessible to our assessment team remotely. A silver lining here is that students no longer have the timed write to worry about; the Writing Program staff and assessment team members are eager to read the best writing WSU students can compose as opposed to an essay composed under time constraints and about a topic likely of no interest to the writer. Overall, the Writing Program staff believes that the move to eliminate the timed write benefits most, if not all, students.

The UWP fee was established through the WSU Fee Committee of the President’s Office in the early 1990s and exists to support the evaluation and improvement of cross-disciplinary student writing at WSU. The fee is automatically placed onto student accounts at 60 credits. Transfer credits and Running Start credits are taken into consideration for the application of the fee, as well. The Writing Portfolio fee is $50 and is non-refundable.