A colleague whose work I deeply admire once shared with me an academic essay she had just finished writing. The piece was a fascinating offshoot of another project: I thought it was beautifully written and cleverly framed. She pulled together disparate sources into a compelling narrative. Her insights were relevant to contemporary societal issues. It was, in short, so good. My admiration for this essay, unfortunately, was not shared by her peer reviewers. One took as much pleasure in tearing her down as I took in reading the essay. Her writing was “stale,” “vague,” “frothy,” and “irritating,” the reviewer wrote. Those are just the repeatable parts from one paragraph of the comments.
Academics are in the business of receiving feedback: We are treated to Word documents peppered with track changes and comments-disguised-as-questions at conferences. Our abstracts are rejected, our fellowship proposals accepted, our tenure cases are…best not to think about it. What are some ways to approach all of this feedback, then, especially when it’s not specific, very late, totally out of line, or just plain mean? How do we maintain perspective when our identities are so often tied up in the work that we do? Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen provide many strategies to try in their 2015 book Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well. “Receiving feedback well is a process of sorting and filtering,” they write, “of learning how the other person sees things; of trying on ideas that at first seem a poor fit; of experimenting.” Here are just four of their tips to help you receive feedback better:
- Know what type of feedback you’re looking for. Stone and Heen divide feedback into three categories: appreciation, coaching, and evaluation. Be clear with your readers ahead of time what sort of feedback you need; often frustration can arise if we receive a different type of feedback than we were hoping for. Maybe you want to determine whether or not an article is ready for submission (evaluation), but instead receive a list of twelve things to correct (coaching). You might express thanks for the suggestions along with a “may I also confirm that this piece is on track overall?”
- Clarify where the feedback is coming from. It can be frustrating to receive three 9/10 marks on response papers when you’ve been working hard to improve each time. To you, a 9 is a sign you’re still missing something. But if this is a seminar where a professor has never given a 10 ever, three 9s may be unheard of. Keep in mind that you need to understand the other person’s rubric before you can fully interpret their feedback.
- Try to view more feedback as coaching. Perhaps your advisor told you in a meeting last week that you need to read the work of two authors you’ve never heard of in order to advance your argument. You might be tempted to worry that your advisor secretly thinks you’re not well-read. Maybe your advisor thinks you shouldn’t even be in graduate school?! Instead of spiraling, work to see this feedback for what it is: an opportunity to gain insight and strengthen your work.
- Find one place to start. After an hour-long meeting or receiving a Google doc with 178 comments, how you’re supposed to proceed may not be clear. Ask your feedback giver for one thing to work on first. Or, in Stone and Heen’s wording, ask “what’s one thing you see me doing, or failing to do, that’s getting in my own way?” Requesting one take-away can also be useful when you’re not quite convinced a reader has given your piece the time it deserves. If those three lonely grammar corrections on your chapter draft aren’t of much use, set up a meeting or send an email so you can determine one concrete next step.
Sometimes, as with the mean-spirited comments my friend received, there’s not much to do with feedback other than laugh it off. To her credit, she did. “In every situation in life, there’s the situation itself, and then there’s how you handle it,” Stone and Heen write. While the reviewer essentially gave her an “F” for reasons known only to him, my friend deserves an A+ for taking that feedback in stride.
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