by Carol Gioia

Created on: August 17, 2008   Last Updated: April 27, 2012

As much as writers love to write, they are equally enthusiastic about receiving feedback for their literary efforts. As Helium members, not only can we instantly publish our written words, we can also garner almost immediate comments, praise and critique of our work.

Here are the various methods of obtaining feedback on the Helium site:

• Rating

As soon as we post an article and hit the submit button, our article goes into the rating queue. Rating is not a perfect measure of the quality of our writing, due to its subjective nature, but ratings will give us a fairly good indication of how well our work is received.

If our article is in the top 25% of rank, we can be assured we have made a worthy contribution. If what we have written is in the lower 25%, we might want to scrutinize our content to insure it contains the subject matter suggested by the title. Examining for errors in grammar, punctuation, formatting or other issues is warranted. In any event, rating is our first taste of feedback.

• Open Member Feedback Forum

On the community boards there is a writer's critique forum. One of the sub-forums in that area is Open Member Feedback. Any writer can go there and post a request for comments or critique of his article.

There are three different threads representing the various types of articles; creative writing, debates or regular articles. The writer can determine where his article fits and post as a new topic to the correct thread.

There is a fourth thread in this area called Bragging Rights. This is where a writer can post an article he is proud of for any reason. Something does not have to be wrong with an article to deserve feedback; sometimes a writer just wants validation for his high ranking good article.

• Peer Critique

To receive customized feedback and a more formal critique, a writer can request a peer review. Email Content@helium.com, enter the words "peer review" in the subject box and post the url and title of the article in the body of the email. Only one request is allowed per email, but a writer may submit to Peer Critique as often as he wishes. Helium will send a notification email on the day your article is featured.

These feedback tools are an excellent way to manage your portfolio of articles. Monitor the writing percentile on the "My Helium" page. If the percentile dips below 75%, review the individual article ranks on the "My Articles" page and submit any articles in the lower 50% of rank to be critiqued.

Often

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