When you think of your development as a scholar and as a writer, what has been the most helpful feedback you’ve received on an assignment? In the discussion below, be as specific as memory will allow. Which types of comments helped you improve your writing or thinking? Which types of comments have you found least helpful?

When you think of your development as a scholar and as a writer, what has been the most helpful feedback you’ve received on an assignment? In the discussion below, be as specific as memory will allow. Which types of comments helped you improve your writing or thinking? Which types of comments have you found least helpful?

[Emily S. Channell-Justice]

I had several positive experiences with critical feedback from the person who became my adviser. In one research paper, I attempted to apply a theoretical framework that didn’t really work, and instead of just writing “this doesn’t work,” she wrote, “I see what you want to do here, but you’re not getting there,” and then she helped me figure out why I wasn’t getting there through her other comments and close reading. She also commented positively on what I had done well or what I had written in an engaging way, letting me know that she didn’t think I was a bad student even though the paper was really imperfect. It made me a lot more receptive to the criticism because there was positive feedback as well. I was really surprised she took the time on a regular course paper to do that, but it motivated me to revisit the subject several times to correct the problematic theoretical framework (I ended up writing a master’s thesis about the same topic) and now I know what to expect on dissertation feedback.

[Danielle Stewart]

This prompt is difficult to respond to because I feel like the commentary have I received on most of my papers has been very vague. There were a lot of “Good jobs!” (to the point that as an undergraduate in a small department I wondered if my teachers actually read my papers, or if they had just come to expect good work from me and so automatically replied “Good job!” to whatever I submitted). The negative feedback was also not particularly helpful. I remember getting a “not your best work” without much explanation of what was lacking. Another professor told me my writing needed improvement, but couldn’t define specifically what needed improving, only that I would get better with time. My advisor is a copious editor and her input on my proposal was invaluable, she challenged me to be more exact in my terminology and more precise in my visual analysis. But I am only just receiving this kind of directed feedback now, as I prepare to write my dissertation! Thinking back over my own experience, I can definitely see the value in giving students more directed commentary on their written work.

[Jennifer Pipitone]

Interestingly, the most helpful feedback I received at the beginning of graduate school was, “find your voice and use it.” While this feedback may seem vague at the surface, it led to great improvements in my confidence, passion, and approach to writing. It stung to hear it at first, as if I had no voice. But after re-reading the passages, and talking with my advisor about his comment, I realized that my writing was lacking passion and felt distanced. I remember he said something to me along the lines of “I know what the research says, but what do you say about it? Why does it matter to you?” This helped me to engage more with my own thinking and writing. Simply writing “find your voice” on an undergraduate student paper without having a conversation with them would certainly not be helpful, but I do think it’s something that can brought up in class or in one-on-one meetings. To remind our students that they have a voice and we want to hear it! To remind them that their voice matters to us; and to encourage them to take risks and explore it through writing.

The least helpful type of comments I have received on papers in the past are those that are in the same family as seeing “fix” after a sentence, in the margin, or after a paragraph. Fix how? Is it awkward? Is it not factual? Does it not flow? Sometimes it may be obvious, but in other instances that may not be the case. Without being aware of what needs to be fixed, it can make it very difficult to do edits. At the same time, when an awkward sentence has been edited for me, sometimes it’s hard to know what was wrong with it so I can be cognizant the next time. I find myself thinking about the best way to balance this type of feedback for my students–to ensure I give enough information to move them in the right direction, while not simply giving them the answer.

[James J. A. Blair]

An especially memorable and useful piece of advice from one of my professors was to picture writing from the perspective of an airplane rather than a bicycle. Writing as though I am viewing my paper from above helped me to articulate and emphasize the main points, instead of getting lost in the details of the narrative. One might enjoy everything passing by on the ground during a bike ride, but it can distract from the broader narrative. This has been helpful for moving from the research stage to writing up.

[James J. A. Blair]

An especially memorable and useful piece of advice from one of my professors was to picture writing from the perspective of an airplane rather than a bicycle. Writing as though I am viewing my paper from above helped me to articulate and emphasize the main points, instead of getting lost in the details of the narrative. One might enjoy everything passing by on the ground during a bike ride, but it can distract from the broader narrative. This has been helpful for moving from the research stage to writing up.

This was more helpful than comments from professors who write sarcastic comments or simply “Ha!” in the margins, although I find those entertaining, too.

[Nicole Webb]

During my first semester as a PhD student one of my professors spent weeks covering how to write specifically for our academic discipline. He started at an incredibly basic level that focused on key grammatical concepts and gradually worked up to bigger issues like overusing complicated jargon. He was able to teach me how to be more effective in my writing by responding to it in detailed paragraphs that outlined the problematic nature of my organization/ word choices. In addition, he would have us focus on excerpts from other individuals that were taking the course. At one point he even took sloppy paragraphs from his own dissertation work and had us critically evaluate them. I think the combination of thoughtful commentary and our candid class discussions helped me to eventually recognize good scientific writing.He would often ask me to identify the work’s central thesis then highlight the support for it and it was during such exercises that I learned to objectively assess my own writing. In contrast, I’ve encountered professors that couldn’t give me useful information about how to improve and this made me feel very negative about my capabilities as a scholar. In fact, when you receive those generic negative responses you begin to take them personal and this can sometimes discourage students from the one activity that can actually improve their writing– practice.

[Matteo Bellucci]

Coming from a different country, my main issue at the beginning of my PhD was learning the way Americans structure their thought in writing. I got the most useful advice from the professor who graded my first exam, which required me to write essays. Before that exam, I was used to make a selection of the most important concepts when writing about a topic. I thought that the main purpose of writing was to give more information as possible. Instead she advised me to focus on one single concept and explain it in details. In particular she told me to analyze a general idea, which I would have mentioned at the beginning, and to explain it in the main part of the essay by referring to specific details, always going from the general to the particular. Although at first I found difficult to adapt to a different writing, I realized that this way of structuring my thought allowed me to make my points stronger and prove them to the readers in a more convincing way.
On the other hand, I always found extremely challenging to understand comments that asked me to be more specific without providing examples. One of my professors wrote a few times the comment “explain better” on one of my papers. This comment proved to be rather unclear to me since it didn’t specify what kind of information he expected from me – for instance more references to primary sources or to theoretical approaches. I think that if he added specific examples he would have helped me understand his way of reasoning in a certain context, suggesting me new prompts for the assignments that would have followed.