5 Tips on Addressing the Feedback on Your Essay

Students are rarely fortunate enough to submit their assignments from the first attempt without addressing comments from their teacher. Essays are the most common type of written assignments. So, most students start learning about academic writing by comp...

Article Posted in: College Level Education

Students are rarely fortunate enough to submit their assignments from the first attempt without addressing comments from their teacher. Essays are the most common type of written assignments. So, most students start learning about academic writing by composing and, eventually, revising them until they realize what to avoid and what to stick to.

However, writing a kind of process analysis essay is only the beginning. Later, you will have to work with:

  • book reviews;
  • annotated bibliographies;
  • courseworks;
  • research papers;
  • business plans;
  • maybe even theses and dissertations.

Those kinds of assignments will require more time for research. You won’t have that many opportunities to learn how to address feedback properly. In the end, the higher the academic level is, the higher the standards. Probably, there will be few attempts to submit your work. So, start learning how to address feedback now by checking out the tips below.

how to address feedback

Clarify Unclear Things Beforehand

Before even starting revising your essay, look through all the feedback comments. As you receive them, first of all, ask the teacher about any vague things. A comment that seems vague to you may imply significant changes in the end. It will be even worse if you just ignore such comments while making the changes.

Unless you have a clear picture of what you’re supposed to write, double-check it with the person who reviewed your assignment. Even if there are only a couple of comments, it doesn’t mean they are minor. A whole ‘this section doesn’t support the thesis’ may seem harmless at first. Yet, it can both mean that the thesis should be rephrased and the essay - rewritten almost completely.

The same can be relevant to feedback on critical lens essays where students often dwell on abstract things or philosophy. A simple note about wrong interpretations of yours won’t give you much clarity, indeed. Yet, that’s what some teachers and professors write sometimes. In order not to stay in the dark and make irrelevant corrections, clarify all points.

Don’t Rush

If you have a day or two to address the feedback, do not try to do it in 30 minutes right after you receive comments. It is especially relevant if you were asked to rewrite or add some parts, not just fix grammar.

Making changes in a hurry is one of the most typical things that harm students’ grades. In the end, you may make even more mistakes. Or, you may miss some extra feedback your teacher left for you on another page you forgot to look at because of the rush.

Re-Check the Formatting

As you go through and revise the document, you will probably mess up the format which will make your work look rather poor. Check whether the corrected version still follows your literary analysis essay outline and coincides with the table of contents. Revise the latter if you updated the sections (or their names), changed their order, or deleted them.

Look for extra spacing, indentations or varying fonts, colors, and font sizes. The newly added sources and citations should be formatted in line with the referencing style. It might seem like some minor stuff, yet, it can earn you some points, especially in bigger assignments in the future.

essay writing tips

Avoid Careless Changes

Often, students tend to make straightforward or superficial changes. If there’s a comment from your teacher with an example, it doesn’t mean you should copy and paste that content in the text and be done with it. When you see the comment with an example of a grammar or spelling error, check the text for similar issues.

Teachers rarely highlight each and every mistake you’ve made. Do not just fix that specific letter in that specific word. Such amendments will rather annoy the reviewer than assure them that the work can be accepted and graded decently. Anyway, they will either lower your grade eventually due to the mistakes or keep sending more feedback again and again.

Keep the Context in Mind

Imagine yourself reading a coherent text that makes sense at first, suddenly starts dwelling on a totally different matter, and switches back to the first topic. You won’t trace think the author nailed it, will you? Professors think the same as they see corrections that were made out of the context of a passage.

Sometimes, you can be asked to give examples or provide evidence in a particular passage. Make sure you re-read that passage to provide relevant information. Take, for instance, a paragraph that talks about the migration situation in Germany. If you are asked to add some numbers, it’s irrelevant to add world statistics you found from the very first link on Google.

Key Points

It’s understandable that after having put a lot of effort into an essay one can not feel like making even slight changes. However, working with the professor’s feedback is integral to every student’s academic journey. So, start doing it decently as early as possible to nail your future assignments without much trouble.

Article Posted in: College Level Education
Tags: Essay Writing Good Essay Writing Essay

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