About Discussions: Get feedback on your draft – Academia Support

Discussions let you share a copy of your paper on Academia.edu and invite focused feedback from other researchers. You might also receive invitations to join a Discussion from time to time on Academia. People from all over the world can leave general comments or line-by-line annotations, which makes Discussions especially helpful if you need advice on your draft before submitting it.

If you want to start one, follow our step-by-step guide: How to start and set up a Discussion.

Example of a Discussion page on Academia.edu.

Key terms

Discussion: The page where feedback on your paper or draft draft is collected.
Draft: The copy of your paper you’re sharing for feedback.
Comment: Feedback left on the discussion (general feedback).
Annotation: A comment tied to a specific line or section of the draft.

View your discussions

To find your discussions, click your name and profile photo in the top-right corner, then select Start a Discussion.

You’ll see a list of discussions you've previously joined, including expired discussions.

Who can view and comment

Anyone can see that you created a discussion.
Only people who have joined your discussion can leave comments.
Some people can join automatically, including:
- Mutual followers (people you follow who also follow you back)
- Qualified users (for example, professors and faculty)
Everyone else will need to request access, and you’ll need to approve them.

When someone joins your discussion, their followers may see an update about it in their news feed, which can lead to more people requesting access.

Extend a discussion

To give people more time to leave feedback, select Extend on the Discussion page to add 20 days to your discussion.

Remove a comment (and remove the participant)

If you want to remove a specific comment:

Find the comment in your discussion.
Select the X in the top-right corner of the comment to remove it.
If prompted, you can also remove that person from the discussion.

A "Delete comment" pop-in window, with two options: Cancel the operation or permanently delete the comment.

Delete a discussion

To delete a discussion:

Open the discussion.
Select the gear icon in the top-right corner.
Select Delete Discussion.

📝 Note: Deleting a discussion does not remove the draft from your profile. If you wish to remove the document entirely, you’ll also need to delete the paper from your profile.

After a discussion ends

When a discussion expires, you can still access it (including the existing comments) from your discussions page. However, the comments will no longer be visible to other users, and no new comments can be added.