Submitting Your Review

Meeting Your Deadline

After the show, write your review, letting the cast and crew, their family and friends, and the general public know how well you think it went. The Review Writing Guide will show you what to put in your review and how to present it. To see the deadline for your review, go to the "Submit a review" page at www.cappies.com/cis and look for the deadline listed next to the show. All reviews are due on the Sunday of the same week after a show. For most Cappies chapters, the deadlines for Critics' review submissions are:

Reviews are submitted through Cappies Information Services (CIS), which keeps precise time. Once you submit your review, you will receive an e-mail notifying you that your review was received – and that it was on time (or late). If you miss the deadline by even one second, your review will be marked late and it will not be eligible for publication.

If your review is not in 24 hours after the deadline, e-mail reminders will be sent to you, your Lead Critic, and your Cappies Advisor. If your review is still not in 72 hours after the deadline: (1) you can't submit it any more; (2) your Lead Critic and Advisor will be notified; (3) you will not be allowed to evaluate that show in the award voting; and (4) your school's theatre program may be charged $15 for the price of your ticket and refreshments. If this happens a second time, you will be removed from the roster. (However, if you did not submit a review because of illness or personal emergency, your Advisor can e-mail your chapter Program Director to request a three-day extension, but your Advisor must do so within seven days after the review deadline.) 

Formatting Your Review

You'll be sending in your review electronically, so write it on your computer's word-processing program, where you can use spell-check or grammar-check and save your work. Just write the text of your review (no title or byline), use block paragraphing (no indenting), and skip a line between paragraphs. (Your review will remain anonymous during the Mentors' selection process. If it is selected for publication, the media will receive your and your school's names as they appear on your "View your personal information" page.)

Counting Your Words

The best reviews are usually about 400 to 500 words long. (Your word-processing program most likely has a word-counting tool that can quickly count the words for you.) Reviews that are close to 600 words may not be accepted in some chapters.  Reviews that are close to 300 words are unlikely to be selected and reviews of fewer than 300 words may not count as a submitted review.

Sending It In Via CIS

To submit a review, first copy it from your word-processing program. Then, go to the "Submit a review" page at www.cappies.com/cis, and click on the name of the show for which you wish to submit a review. Paste your review in the text box, and click "Preview Review." Here, make sure you have completed all tasks and check them off on the checklist. If you wish to make any changes, click on "Edit Review," make your changes, and click again on "Preview Review." (The word count is listed at the top of the "Preview Review" page, so you can track it as you edit your review.) You may want to copy your revised review back to your computer program to save it. Once you are completely satisfied with what you are submitting, click "Submit Review."

Fixing Submission Errors

Suppose you discover, after you've submitted your review, that you've made a major error. For example, suppose you reviewed two shows over a weekend and submitted the wrong one for a particular show. If this (or something comparable) happens, please send an e-mail to your chapter's Program Director and/or Web Coordinator, requesting that your review be deleted. When they have done this – which may or may not be prior to the review deadline – you can submit the correct review instead.

If CIS Is Down

The "Current CIS Status" is listed on the Cappies home page at www.cappies.com. If it says "Online", your review must be submitted through CIS as directed above in order to count. However, if CIS is "Offline", submit your review via e-mail to AdminYYY@cappies.com (replacing the "YYY" with the three-letter code for your Cappies chapter). From here, it will be forwarded to the Mentors. Please keep a digital copy on your computer as you may be requested to resubmit your review on CIS.

Getting Read At The Host School Or In The Media

After you click "Submit Review", your review will be forwarded, along with all of the others, to the Discussion and Editor Mentors who will look them over before they are sent to your readers at the host school or the media. The Mentors will edit out any unfair criticism and spot check for plagiarism before the cast and crew read them. (A review found to have substantially violated the rules of criticism may be withheld from the host school and a notice sent to the Critic and/or their Advisor. A Critic found, in any part of their review, to have plagiarized – that is, used someone else's words as their own – will be removed from the roster.)

The Mentors will also select the very best reviews for publication. All of the Critics who attended the show will receive an e-mail letting them know whose reviews have been selected and for which publications. Please be aware that reviews selected for publication may be further edited by the media, and, if there are space limitations, may not actually get published. However, these reviews are posted under "Reviews" at your chapter's home page on www.cappies.com for everyone to see.