So I just turned in a draft of a paper due on Friday to my TA. I got it back today and it has comments on like half of it…
I feel like I’ve been criticized like 10x…
I also fear that my papers will be all marked up when turning in papers in general.
Obviously, I plan on re-reading the comments and modifying my paper based on them, but how can I overcome these feelings of “-______-…ugh!!!” when I get papers back and fear when I turn them in?
Isn’t the criticism what your parents are paying those big bucks to get?
It’s funny, because I struggle with social anxiety, but I actually like reading criticism on my writing (although I’d probably cry if someone was telling me in person). If you’re issue is assuming the worst, remember that the feedback is not meant to be malicious. It doesn’t say anything about your intelligence or capabilities to be a good writer. The feedback is just a good way to see where you’re conveying what you want to say well, and where you need to be clearer or make more easy-to-follow connections. Or, if the issue is your content and not the form of your paper, it’s a way to see what you might have misunderstood about your subject. Now, if your TA was actually being rude, just remember that at the end of the day, it’s just one person’s opinion.
Generally you get feedback on exams, homework, and pretty much all assignments. You can only improve if you know what you did wrong.
Criticism and feedback can take practice getting used to, especially if you’ve never really experienced it before. Getting a lot of feedback is good. It can give you direction on what to improve and it’s much better to get that feedback now when you have time to change things than after you’ve already turned in your paper. It’s much more discouraging to get a C without any comments on what you could do to improve.
I think it’s just important not to take it personally. It’s not criticism of you or your capabilities. Everything can be improved, and everyone’s first pass (and often second or third) needs a lot of work. Polished writing takes a lot of editing–you just don’t often see it because it happens behind the scenes. The number of comments has nothing to do with your quality of writing. Read all the comments, think about the validity of the comment, and then think about how to rectify the situation. Every time you receive feedback on an assignment you will learn how to improve for next time, and you will become a stronger writer because of it.
Think of it like if you were doing a math assignment that you turned into your TA. They hand it back to you telling you what you got wrong and what areas of the assignment you need to work harder in, or perhaps, you work with your TA to come up with more efficient ways to solve a problem or your TA identifies spots where you make silly errors or do unnecessary calculations. Maybe your TA teaches you a better way to solve a problem or how to work through word problems. It’s exactly the same thing with papers, even though it feels different. They’re just identifying the areas that you can improve, and that’s much better than them saying nothing at all. It would be like if you took a math test and they just wrote a grade on the top of the paper without telling you which problems you got right and which problems you got wrong.
It can be hard to get back a paper covered in comments, but trust me, it’s a good thing. If you take them in stride and figure out ways to improve your paper, you’ll become a better writer for it.
Do you disagree with the comments?
Aw thanks guys!
And the corrections weren’t hard to make, actually!
They were just…long…
and no, I agreed with them
Pretend your pillow is the TA and every-time you see a criticism you don’t like, give it a good sock in the face. Then fix the errors.
All my life I never received any criticisms from my English teachers - until I reached AP Literature my senior year. My Literature teacher was brutal; I remember crying when I got the first essay back because it was covered in red ink. Criticism after criticism. It stung like a mother. It initially felt as though my Literature teacher was insulting my moral fiber or something, lol. She could have gone ahead and sucker punched me in the face because it sure as hell felt the same way. But I got used to it - my writing improved drastically (partially because I had an internalized a deep terror of my teacher but mostly because I listened to the constructive criticism and grew from it.)
Criticisms about your writing are not
Personal. Your professors and TAs don’t have vendettas against you. They are trying to help you. They’d be doing you a major disservice if they just passed you along and didn’t provide you with the opportunity to reflect upon your abilities and develop them further.
Meant to discourage you. You should see all feedback as a chance to become better at your craft. You’ll thank yourself later.
Here’s an alternate perspective: I only put lots of comments on papers that have interesting things to say and when the writing is such that it’s worth the effort to correct it. Boring papers, poorly written papers…my comments are generic and uninteresting. But papers that show a spark of something worth cultivating…comments galore!
I’m a TA for a writing class, and I agree with stradmom in that special feedback and more effort goes into more interesting papers or papers with more potential.
If I really like one of my student’s ideas or see that they’re really getting somewhere with it, I’ll put in all kinds of comments to help them bump it up to the next level. I also praise them for what I felt they did well. Did your paper have any positive comments? I’m sure (well, I’d hope) your TA also pointed out your strong points.
There’s no need to feel embarrassed or ashamed if your paper has a lot of comments. That’s a professor’s way of interacting with your writing and giving it his or her undivided attention. You can improve from their comments and recognize your strengths, and remember that they’re not grading YOU as a person – they’re merely grading your writing on one assignment in one class. It doesn’t define you, so don’t let that get to you.
I hope everything went well!
Also it might be a good idea to go to your college’s writing to center to get early feedback on a paper. They can work with you.
Thanks. I re-did the paper, despite the long comments