“That feedback totally destroyed me.”
We’ve all been there, at least I have. I felt that most during my PhD but it happened not too long ago and took me a few days to hike the passes out of the valley of shit I was in.
And when I got out it reminded me this is an opportunity toshare what I’ve learned about giving kind, coherent and helpful feedback because I never want to make anyone feel the way I had.
This is the best of what I have learned about giving goodfeedback on writing. Most of it comes from taking many many creative writing courses in the past 2 years, and it may not all seem relevant to academics but the REAL ESSENTIAL ELEMENT IS as Janet Burroway in Imaginative Writing offers to help the author “make it the best it can be” (2015: 13).
The most useful feedback, rather than ‘it’s shite,’ or ‘it’s brill,’ is to tell the author “What this piece is like” (Burroway, 2015: 13). Get curious, wonder at the possibilities, treat the writing as a draft (because writing is iterative, this is part of the process not a sign of failure). Look at the overall arc and answer a couple questions:
- What is the piece trying to say? Does it succeed?
- What does it make me feel?
- Does it remind you of anything?
- What is the conflict?
Once you identify strengths of the piece as well as potential revision opportunities, it's useful to pose these thoughts as questions or areas of confusion. You can give feedback on grammar and typos but most of the focus should be on helping the author strengthen the structure and
quality of their work.
And for academic peer-reviews, Pat Thomson (of course) offers the most human and clear advice I’ve ever found: https://patthomson.net/2019/10/14/reviewing-your-first-paper/
As the author it can also hugely help to draw the readers attention to specific areas that you’re debating about, this is a list from many of the wonderful, generous, lovely writing groups I’ve been in for creative writing:
- What was your very favourite part of this piece of writing?
- Are there any particular words, sentences, descriptions, ordetails that stick out at you?
- What are your main impressions of the main characters?
- Are there any parts where you felt confused?
- Are there any parts where the pace of the writing feltrushed, or where you think the piece might benefit from adding more details or
information for the reader? - Does the dialogue seem realistic to you?
- Is there anything the writer could perhaps cut to make thepiece stronger and tighter?
- Choose three adjectives to describe this piece of writing.
- What questions sprung up that you hope a longer piecewould answer?
So remember it's "Not What I like, but What this piece is like."
