I Have a Feedback Partner, Now What?

It is up to you and your feedback partner how you would like to communicate as well as how often. I suggest once a week over email and once a month in person (if possible), but communicate with your partner and decide on a firm date that you will be meeting or emailing.

Once you have a scheduled time, it’s important to decide how you would like utilize your time together. I suggest reading and responding to each others current projects, as well as some of the discussion topics I have included below.

Remember, setting up feedback partners is an excellent way to get feedback, make friends, fellowship with other people who have similar interests and writing styles. Make sure you use this time to the best benefit for you and your partner.

Topics For Discussion For Feedback Partners

Touching Base:

• Describe your writing activities since the last meeting in terms of pages written, parts of a project completed, or hurdles overcome.
• If you haven’t written much since the last meeting, you could talk about the kinds of pre-writing activities you have undertaken (research, reading, editing previous work, meeting with a professor or adviser, etc.). Or you could talk about the obstacles to writing that have hindered your progress (writer’s block, having three tests this week, needing to gather more data before you can write, etc.).
• Explain how work that was discussed during the last meeting is now evolving in response to group comments. You might explain which comments you chose to act on, or tell how a section of the piece has been reorganized or rethought in response to the group’s feedback.
• Share your writing plans for the coming week or two so that your group members will know what kinds of writing they will see and so that you can help one another stick to your goals.

Brainstorming as part of the process

• Writing groups can provide not only feedback and a forum in which to share work, but also creative problem-solving for your writing troubles. Your group might try some of these brainstorming ideas:
• Identify a writing problem that one person is having. Ask each group member to free-write possible solutions.
• Cut up a copy of a paper that needs organizational changes so that each section, main idea, or paragraph is on its own slip of paper. As a group, move the pieces of paper around and discuss possible options for reorganizing the work.
• After reading a piece, generate a list of items that the group might like to know more about. Organize these questions into categories for the author to consider.

Responding to other people’s writing can be difficult. Here are a few tips to get you started:

• Say something positive about the piece. Even if a piece of writing needs a lot of work, there is usually something good that can be pointed out – the nugget of a great idea, a particularly well-turned phrase, the beginnings of a good organizational structure, or a thorough understanding of the material.
• Critique the writing, not the writer. Instead of saying, “You aren’t very good at conclusions,” say, “This conclusion didn’t really work for me.”
• Speak from your own perspective, using phrases like, “My reaction to this was …” or “I found this to be …” rather than “this part of the paper is …”. Acknowledge that there may be a variety of opinions about the piece of writing.
• Remember that you are in a writing group to help one another improve. It does not help the writer if you see problems with a piece of writing but don’t mention them because you’re afraid of hurting his/her feelings. Usually a writer would rather hear about a problem from the friendly, supportive members of his/her writing group than hand in a paper with problems and hear about them (with a poor grade!) from a professor.
• Talk about the way you responded as you were reading. Sometimes it’s easier and more helpful to say, “When I read this sentence, I wasn’t sure if the paragraph was going to be about this or about that” than it is to say, “This sentence was confusing.” It can be helpful to have the whole group read the first paragraph and then predict the rest of the paper before reading further. It will help the writer to know what you expected when you began the paper and how those expectations changed as you read.
• Be specific. Instead of just saying, “The organization needs work,” try to figure out where and why the organization broke down. Perhaps you could suggest a different order for the ideas in the paper or think of the kind of transition that might help make the jumps between ideas more logical.
• Whatever you say, imagine yourself on the receiving end of the comment. If this were your work, what would be helpful to you? How would you want people to provide you with criticism?
• Prioritize and sort your comments for the writer. What interfered the most when you read the paper or what was the hardest part of the paper to understand? Sometimes it is helpful to break down your comments into a list of “big things” and a list of “little things” that the writer could do to improve.
• Tailor your comments to the writer and his/her needs. Ask what kind of feedback would be helpful and try to provide that. Ask the writer what sections s/he is most worried about. Avoid suggesting hours and hours of revision for papers that you know are due the same day as your meeting. You can still point out bigger problems, but focus on what can be done between the meeting and the due date.
• Write out key points that you want to share with the writer. This will help you remember them and also provide a written record of your feedback.