4 lessons about giving feedback/criticism on people's work..

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
The last couple of weeks, people have invited me to give feedback on different things - animated video, docu-drama video, literature review for an academic paper, poetry (indirectly), a piece of journalism. 

The easiest thing to do is to point out any typos or grammatical changes. It is more difficult though to explain beyond 'I think it is nice' or 'I like it but.. "


These are the lessons I have learned and applied.

1.  Do no harm, maintain relationships

I don't give unsolicited feedback , except to point out typos and so in work which has been published by people I know who appreciate the corrections. 

Some people who I have a goodish, cordial relationship with might ask for feedback on their work. I would not give feedback on the work if I think the feedback will damage the relationship. I will explain that I am not qualified, or I am not informed enough or that I don't want to engage in the subject of the work.  I will not say that I don't us to become bad friends or enemies.

Generally, I make sure that I am confident that anything I say will not cause any harm to the person.


I put a context to my statements. 'I don't like this because I like blue more than yellow'.. which is different from 'this thing is really ugly'. Or 'I don't like long sentences, I would write this one in two sentences.." and suggest changes.
 

2. Clarify expectations
Two people asked me what I thought about their multimedia work and I had to ask them," what questions you want me to answer?" It was good that I asked since I cannot assess things like composition and so in photography or videography.  One person told me.. "write what you want".. and I did.. giving feedback on audio, content, colours, sounds, etc.

The other person wanted to know specifically about the message of the piece (and not the script and so which I thought I had to do).

So it is good to find out before assessing the work.

3.Say no, or take some time and do research
Things like poems and so, I don't give feedback on since I have no way to assess poetry. I can say when photos are nice and so but nothing more really. So I say no, or avoid answering.

A man sent his research paper and asked me for help with literature review, on an unfamiliar subject. I explained I never wrote one in my life and I have no idea about it. He insisted that I could still give insight. So I opened the search engines and found out that he had not really done a literature review, and I went and started reading into the actual subject and found articles and so on which he could reference.

It was an interesting exercise , to do the research, and to learn about something which I would not ordinarily do.




4. Get feedback on the feedback
A young journalist I don't really know , and never met in person, asked me for feedback on something he wrote. I thought there was a problem in an otherwise interesting piece. I took about 10 to 15 minutes to compose the few lines of message to send to him.  He responded to say he agreed and recognised the problem.  I was glad to get that response.

So in giving feedback, I would say things like 'let me know what you think.. ' ,  does this make sense?.. , what other kinds of feedback have you received?, etc.  Sometimes I would get corrections to my feedback , or clarifications and so. And it makes for good dialogue about the work, other things to include, etc

I am grateful for all feedback on work which I have done. I am glad to complete the circle in the Universe.



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