This week: Survey Responses Edited by: Jeff  
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You never know what you can do until you try,
and very few try unless they have to."
— C.S. Lewis
About The Editor: Greetings! My name is Jeff and I'm one of the regular editors of the official Noticing Newbies Newsletter! I've been a member of Writing.com since 2003, and have edited more than 400 newsletters across the site in that time. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email me directly or submit feedback in the comment box at the bottom of this newsletter. |
Survey Responses
The most popular way of entering contests and activities on the site is using a Message Forum where entries are submitted in the form of posts. "The Bradbury" , "Anniversary Reviews" , and "Cards Against Authors" are all examples of contests or activities where the activity is contained within a Message Forum item. The header of the Message Forum lays out the rules/guidelines for the activity, and you submit entries by creating a post (often to link your entry items) below that.
Other contests use Survey Forms to collect entries, as is the case with "Musicology Anthology" and all of the official contests including "What a Character! : Official WDC Contest" and "Quotation Inspiration: Official Contest" , contain the rules/guidelines for the activity in the header of a Survey Form item, which requires you to enter information into fields at the bottom and submit it that way. Survey Forms can be a great way to catalogue information (and avoids the issue of conversation that can sometimes muddy the waters of an activity that accepts submissions via Message Forum post), but there's one major issue with Survey Forms that can make them frustrating to use:
When you submit a survey form, it doesn't automatically show you a copy of your response to confirm what you've submitted.
With posts in a Message Forum, you can see the post, click on it, and confirm that everything looks correct once the post has been made. But when a Survey Form is submitted, you just get a confirmation screen that the survey response has been recorded; you don't actually see a copy of your response.
This can often lead to problems where entrants submit broken or incorrect links (e.g., bitem links with a space after the colon which renders them as text rather than a complete link, copying and pasting the contest's item number instead of the entry's item number, etc.), or other missing and/or incorrect information that could jeopardize your entry status if it's a contest or activity.
While I hope that a day comes where the Survey Forms have increased functionality (a preview function like with Message Forum posts, or a copy of your response - or at least a link to it - on the Survey submission confirmation page), there is something you can do in the meantime to double-check the things you submit via Survey Forms. From the left-column navigation menu, simply go to:
My Account > Survey Responses (under My Activity)
This will take you to a page that has recorded all of your survey responses that are still valid on the site (i.e., unless the Survey Form owner deletes the responses), and allows you to view what you submitted, what survey it was for, and the date on which it was submitted. So if you do submit an entry to, say, one of the official contests using a Survey Form, you can check what you submitted here to confirm that the survey form was submitted as you intended. If something is wrong, you hopefully have time to contact the activity organizer to clarify.
Hopefully the Survey Responses helps ensure that whenever you submit a Survey Form on the site (especially when it's to submit an entry for an activity you worked hard on), you have a way of checking and confirming that everything was submitted as you wanted it to be. 
Until next time,
Jeff
If you're interested in checking out my work:
"New & Noteworthy Things" | "Blogocentric Formulations"
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This month's official Writing.com writing contest is:
You are also invited to check out these items from members of the community:
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Have an opinion on what you've read here today? Then send the Editor feedback! Find an item that you think would be perfect for showcasing here? Submit it for consideration in the newsletter!
https://www.Writing.Com/go/nl_form
Feedback from "Noticing Newbies Newsletter (April 30, 2025)" about sensory details:
Dear Jeff. Thankyou for including my work in this newsletter, I look forward to seeing more of these as they can be the little bit of inspiration or give a nudge in a direction before unknown. Regards, SomeKindaWords
— SomeKindaWords  |
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Noticing Newbies: May 28, 2025 Issue [#13158]
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