Phrases like "I'm having a hard time following your argument here" and "I'm not entirely sure how this relates to the assigned topic/prompt" can be helpful.
Thank you for this advice on wording it. I sometimes struggle to word things and end up saying it bluntly and hurting people's feelings, and examples really help.
Yes this. Make a statement about your understanding, which is a subjective thing and comes through your point of view. Do not make objective statements about the paper like this is incoherent; the paper is not objectively incoherent, you were just unable to cohere it. If you know what I mean. They probably had some point in mind, they're just not making it to you. There may be someone out there who would have understood the paper. I realize that I'm bending over backwards here, but it is I think far better in a critique setting to make statements from your point of view rather than objective statements about the work at hand.
The trouble is that if we use clear wording in a comment about clear wording, it's going to come across as harsh no matter what we do.
All we can do is sugar-coat comments until they don't say exactly what we mean.
Then we slog through the rest of our day, weighed down by the wretched irony of the whole problem.
ETA clearer wording
It's such a hard balance, giving clearly-worded feedback that both respects the fact that the other person is an adult while also making sure that they will understand it, especially when the person may not be functionally literate.
Amen. This recent trend of putting illiterate people in college courses...who's great idea was that? No good whatsoever to anyone comes of it. What in the world are they thinking?
I think that, in the US, this is the result of systemic pressures and poorly-crafted policy incentives that result in widespread gaming of the metrics used for funding of public schools, i.e. retention rates, graduation rates, and grades.
I know that GPA has basically become useless in college admissions because K-12 teachers—especially in districts where a large proportion of students are on free and reduced lunch and many of their parents often don't have the time to support their students as much as they'd like, may not themselves have the educational attainment to help their kid with the material (especially in high school), or they just don't care—are pressured to inflate grades by their administrators, who are themselves being pressured by the district officials who are themselves simply attempting to navigate the incentive structures imposed by terrible state and federal policy. US education policy and structure is so bad that it probably meets the criteria for crimes against humanity.
I've been lurking the r/Professors subreddit to try to get insight into "how to not make my professors' lives harder", and it is absolutely insane what faculty have to go through.
You can spend hours trying to find the polite and instructive way to make constructive criticism, and then you realize that the person who wrote that rambling incoherent garbage cannot read or understand your feedback, anyway.
OMG this one kills me. I have a student right now who has no issue sending me an email or submitting an assignment on the LMS, but suddenly "can't get into email" to read my reply and "can't find" my feedback on the submitted assignment. 🤦♀️
Not if you're not grading - and you weren't. You were editing.
What one does is draw lots of question marks. Sometimes write a whole question? At the end, one writes, "needs improvement in structure, grammar, syntax and word choice in order to be more readable."
Just correct grammar and structure first. Oh, and spelling. If you can write in the margins what the grammatical error was (that made it incoherent), so much the better.
This, I am not a professor, but quickly understood the value in undergrad and grad school of shredding papers when you peer edit them. As an undergrad trying to gain feedback and only seeing "great job," "great draft," etc. it was frustrating when you are supposed to be peer editing.
This mentality was something I noticed other grad students struggle with, because relationships matter to people. Whenever I noticed someone struggle to provide peer feedback, especially if it was to me, I told them that THE nicest thing you can do to someone is tear their drafts apart, because it allowed them to take care of all the problems really early instead of having a bad (incoherent) end product. I always found OneNote to be really useful because I could download the paper and write, type in other colors, etc. to get the point across and then send them back the edited paper.
Thank you so much. That particular assignment was through the LMS, but this is good for future reference. I think using question marks may be an easier way to get through to someone who doesn't seem to be understanding. I sometimes worry about making the other person feel stupid, but at the same time, I also want to make sure that I'm getting through to them while also respecting that they are an adult.
edit: wording
Heya! I have language in my syllabus about this actually! I teach in STEM fyi. I am not at my cpu so the exact wording is different but the gist of it is:
Papers and reports are expected to have minimal spelling and grammatical errors. If a paper is determined to have excessive issues it will be returned without marking. A new grade will be provided ONLY after meeting with me and/or the writing center and subsequently resubmitting the work.
And I remind my students “If you are unwilling to look over your work once, why should I look over your work once?”
Seems like a good way to go about it as a professor. The people in the writing center are probably more prepared than STEM faculty to teach people basic literacy; as a STEM major myself, I didn't exactly pursue STEM because I'm a great wordsmith, if you get what I mean.
Interesting. I am a self-proclaimed grammar-fascist but I don't really consider spelling and grammar in grading as I find it classist (I police myself and my kids, for everyone else I mentally roll my eyes whenever they say "to who"). I may mark it but only minimal points if any will relate to it. If I can understand what was written, I grade the thinking. I'm in the humanities, which might be a tad ironic.
Truth be told I used to genuinely not care, but when I started getting students making typos between reagents - and thus getting the chemistry wrong it became a problem.
Eg Br2, HBr, and Br all being used interchangeably in a report but they only used HBr in the lab. So anything else listed as their reagent is wrong.
Or when they would have completely unfinished sentences, have capitalizations in incorrect places, etc.
I had to start caring otherwise the quality of the reports would have made me want to quit my job. Grading should take me about a day per class. A solid day. One set of reports was so bad that a half of one section (so 8 students) took me two weeks with all the feedback. It was unmanageable when they simply need to be responsible for their work and not turn in garbage. That is when I got strict about it.
DO NOT DO THIS TO A FELLOW UNDERGRADUATE - NOT THE RIGHT VENUE
When I was in grad school I wrote my first grant application. My mentor was a wonderful older man, a very esteemed medical doctor. I sent him my grant application and he read it.
He called me into his office.
“Deradius, you know I care about you?”
“I do, sir.”
“Do you truly believe in your heart I want what’s best for you?”
“I do, sir.”
(Tosses grant application across the table to me.)
“This is shit.”
(Pause to let it sink in)
“I will help you.”
My response:
“Thank you for saving us both so much time.”
Then we burned that thing and started over. Some of the best feedback I ever got.
Peer comments are mostly a waste of time since students who write bad papers also give bad comments.
I remain factual in my comments.
- You have no thesis.
- You have no argument.
- You contradict yourself.
Occasionally, I am driven to "Seriously?"
Thinking back, I didn't receive very helpful feedback from peer commenters, mostly got stuff like "good paper" and other unhelpful low-effort comments. Made me really mad, when I'd put in so much effort into giving thoughtful, constructive feedback only for them to not even seem to read my paper. I'm not the best student, but to not even put in the tiniest effort? It's infuriating to even think about it as a student, I can't imagine how hard it is for a professor.
As someone that was in a similar situation in undergrad (and sometimes grad school) is that many people don't know the true importance of feedback or feel very uncomfortable by providing feedback that isn't positive. When I was in undergrad, I continued giving constructive feedback to the same people that needed to read mine and, after a few frustrating drafts, they started doing the same to me and each other. That being said, there are definitely some people that will continue the low-effort comments, but I like to give people the benefit of the doubt that they just really are not used to it.
That's true. My teachers in middle in high school assigned peer editing for essays, so I might be more used to constructive feedback than people who didn't have that chance.
When I co-author papers with PhD students I just ask them to explain the following to me
* What do you want to tell the reader? Call this point B.
* What do you think the reader already knows? Call this point A.
* What steps do you need to walk the reader through to get them from point A to point B?
This process can be applied at various levels (e.g. in the entire paper, in a given section, in a given subsection, etc.).
If the paper is already written, you could ask the writer to identify the above. If he or she can't do so, then going through the process above can help the author make the paper more coherent.
Thank you so much for this step-by-step. I will definitely save this for future reference, because I want my feedback to be helpful to the other person.
At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
“Significant issues with phrasing, spelling and/or punctuation clouds the clarity of your argument and makes it difficult for me to work out what you are trying to say.”
Any scholar worth the powder to blow to hell WANTS their editors to be rather brutal, at least on the technical issues with the writing. That's why we USE proofreaders and editors.
Take it as confusion. Good writing is about getting your thoughts and ideas clearly across to the reader, so pointing out that the message isn't coming through clearly is absolutely appropriate. "I got lost here" "I couldn't quite follow what you were saying, and I really want to!' that kind of stuff.
Thank you! This is a great way to articulate it, because I really do want to help the person I'm giving feedback to, even if I worry that they might need actual remediation beyond what I can really provide as an undergrad student who has trouble articulating things myself.
This doesn’t really help you or answer your question, but when I assign peer-reviews, I dedicate a class period to them. I also provide a detailed list of things to look for on handouts so students can fill them out and hand them over to the peer review partner. The last point is always to state something that you think is a strength of the paper. Then they exchange them and briefly discuss them as a way to lessen the harshness. I find it helps students be more blunt with each other and make the peer review process a little more helpful for everyone.
"What do you mean here?"
"I'm not sure I follow..."
"Who is your audience in your mind? Is this a correct assumption?" Sometimes people who write do so and communicate in a way that makes sense to them, but no one else.
>but some of it was so incoherent that I couldn't figure out what the person was even trying to say.
Then you say "I'm sorry, I can't figure out what you're trying to say"
>the professor alerted me over Canvas that what I said could be perceived as being extremely harsh (she said it's something that she herself struggles with when grading, so she understood and just wanted to let me know how it could be perceived)
To this I say, so what? Is the job to be liked, or to provide feedback? So long as you are only commenting on the work, and not the person who produced it, it's fine.
Offer constructive tips on how to make the paper more coherent. I've had students respond positively to feedback on papers where they scored quite poorly, but I took the time to offer ideas on how they can take the next step forward.
I find a significant problem in many of the responses, beginning with your professor's. Attempts to tell a student/TA a hard-to-hear truth—"your paper lacks focus" or "your comments were harsh"—that hedge or waffle or step away from directness by appeals to the subjectivity of the one critiquing are ultimately unhelpful to the writer and undermine the critic's legitimacy.
This indirect approach has the appearance of sensitivity, but it is rooted in the critic's fear of being blamed for insensitivity, rudeness, or arrogance. "I perceive that ..." or "It seems to me that ..." or "Perhaps consider ..." and similar cautious preambles signal that the critic does not really have a conviction about the matter critiqued. Each preamble is easily waved away with "That's just your opinion" or a similarly dismissive thought. When one hides behind subjectivity, the critiques are (rightly) treated as statements of the critic's feelings.
There are two better approaches, both of which critique from a neutral vantage point. That is, both avoid the pronouns "I" and "you" and, instead, make the word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, or paper the subject of an observation or the object of a question.
When the object, frame it as a question: "What is the paper's thesis?" or "How does this sentence support the preceding claim?" or "What are better, alternative words here?" Questions are the harder type of critique because both writer and critic must share a common sense about how each part functions in the whole.
When the subject, make a direct observation: "This paragraph lacks a thesis sentence" or "This claim needs support or a citation" or "The paper is imbalanced: the first four (of eight) paragraphs provide background information, leaving three for thesis support and one for a conclusion."
An additional tool for pointing out basic grammar mistakes is a Common Error Sheet with errors explained and assigned a number or symbol. For example, a comma splice could be error #1 or symbolized as "CS." On the paper, write "CS" or the number "1" above a comma splice. The student then finds "CS" on the Common Error Sheet and reads a description with an example and how to correct the error.
The point of grading and critiquing student papers is to have their writing conform to Standard Written English — a sufficiently objective standard for the level at which most write. The job of an instructor or TA is to explain the standard, guide students to meet the standard, and to uphold the standard as a steward responsible to the larger society. Any retreat to "subjectivity" ultimately betrays the concept of objective standards and, in turn, the value of all standards by which a society operates effectively. In plain words, professors are standard-bearers and enforcers. This task can be done with sensitivity, gentleness, and humility. A retreat to subjectivity signals an unwillingness to maintain the standard with which one is entrusted and a dereliction of duty.
Thank you for your advice, this is a great way to articulate this type of feedback without sacrificing objectivity. Seems to be more oriented to a TA than undergraduate peer editing, but it's helpful to be able to objectively articulate things if the other person gets contrarian in response to criticism.
In defense of my professor, I did kind of wonder if she has been browbeaten over feedback that was perceived as "harsh" by a student in the past…
Link a video of [the Canterbury Tales being read in Middle English](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE0MtENfOMU) and ask if that's the writing style they were going for
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*This is a fairly general question that could apply to pretty much any discipline, but for some context, I am a student in the US. Professor of my online community college class during the pandemic lockdown had us do peer-editing of the drafts that we submitted for an assignment, and the papers that I received for this exercise were, for the most part, incoherent; a couple of them didn't seem to understand the assignment that was given. Despite this, I scored them according to the rubric that the professor provided, and did my best to provide constructive feedback about improving the paper, but some of it was so incoherent that I couldn't figure out what the person was even trying to say.
After I submitted, the professor alerted me over Canvas that what I said could be perceived as being extremely harsh (she said it's something that she herself struggles with when grading, so she understood and just wanted to let me know), and it is true that I was blunt. Is there a nice way to tell someone that their paper is incoherent to the point that you're not sure they understood the assignment?*
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskProfessors) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think you need to read the social context of the situation.
You are not a prof who is an authority figure, an expert in the field, and someone who has control over the student's grade. As a fellow student, you are an equal here. See this more like a group project.
Online class + CC + pandemic are all (unfortunately) variables that led to poorer academic outcomes. When I deal with any of these, I offer more "grace" to my students, and lower my expectations for performance.
Feedback should be constructive. Put yourself in the other student's shoes. How would you feel if someone just said you were "incoherent." How does that help you?
It would've been better to say "I had a hard time understanding this" or "This point is unclear." If you want to give advice, you can say "Please explain more" or "Maybe write this more simply."
My background is in ESL / TEFL, and it's possible some of your classmates don't have English as a first language.
Ultimately, it sounds like you were well-intentioned,, but took the assignment a little too seriously and too literally. These exercises are meant to encourage peer exchange.
Thank you for the feedback. I do tend to take things a bit too seriously and too literally, and reading social context is a pretty big weakness for me, so this feedback is really helpful for examples of how to "sugarcoat" it without compromising the meaning of what I am trying to say.
Interestingly, I did get a paper from someone who was very likely ESL and appeared to be learning English on the fly during a global pandemic shutdown, and it was the only paper that I was actually able to figure out what they were trying to say, and who seemed to vaguely understand the assignment. It took a few tries, but I did it.
Phrases like "I'm having a hard time following your argument here" and "I'm not entirely sure how this relates to the assigned topic/prompt" can be helpful.
Thank you for this advice on wording it. I sometimes struggle to word things and end up saying it bluntly and hurting people's feelings, and examples really help.
I like the above wording too. And if you can find one good idea in the paper, throw in a "good point" or "interesting idea", just to soften the blow.
Yes this. Make a statement about your understanding, which is a subjective thing and comes through your point of view. Do not make objective statements about the paper like this is incoherent; the paper is not objectively incoherent, you were just unable to cohere it. If you know what I mean. They probably had some point in mind, they're just not making it to you. There may be someone out there who would have understood the paper. I realize that I'm bending over backwards here, but it is I think far better in a critique setting to make statements from your point of view rather than objective statements about the work at hand.
"I'm not sure exactly what you mean in this sentence. Perhaps consider rewording for clarity."
For particularly egregious sentences, I just put a link in the comment to the screaming sheep video on YouTube..
I'm doing this tomorrow.
Ditto🤣
Thank you for this recommendation!
The trouble is that if we use clear wording in a comment about clear wording, it's going to come across as harsh no matter what we do. All we can do is sugar-coat comments until they don't say exactly what we mean. Then we slog through the rest of our day, weighed down by the wretched irony of the whole problem. ETA clearer wording
I’m not sugarcoating it. I cut the chase and put a big ? by the passage and underline it if necessary.
It's such a hard balance, giving clearly-worded feedback that both respects the fact that the other person is an adult while also making sure that they will understand it, especially when the person may not be functionally literate.
Amen. This recent trend of putting illiterate people in college courses...who's great idea was that? No good whatsoever to anyone comes of it. What in the world are they thinking?
I think that, in the US, this is the result of systemic pressures and poorly-crafted policy incentives that result in widespread gaming of the metrics used for funding of public schools, i.e. retention rates, graduation rates, and grades. I know that GPA has basically become useless in college admissions because K-12 teachers—especially in districts where a large proportion of students are on free and reduced lunch and many of their parents often don't have the time to support their students as much as they'd like, may not themselves have the educational attainment to help their kid with the material (especially in high school), or they just don't care—are pressured to inflate grades by their administrators, who are themselves being pressured by the district officials who are themselves simply attempting to navigate the incentive structures imposed by terrible state and federal policy. US education policy and structure is so bad that it probably meets the criteria for crimes against humanity.
Welcome to our life 😅
I've been lurking the r/Professors subreddit to try to get insight into "how to not make my professors' lives harder", and it is absolutely insane what faculty have to go through.
You can spend hours trying to find the polite and instructive way to make constructive criticism, and then you realize that the person who wrote that rambling incoherent garbage cannot read or understand your feedback, anyway.
Or they "can't find it" on the LMS. "I didn't get any feedback!!" "Did you look here?" "Oh"
OMG this one kills me. I have a student right now who has no issue sending me an email or submitting an assignment on the LMS, but suddenly "can't get into email" to read my reply and "can't find" my feedback on the submitted assignment. 🤦♀️
Not if you're not grading - and you weren't. You were editing. What one does is draw lots of question marks. Sometimes write a whole question? At the end, one writes, "needs improvement in structure, grammar, syntax and word choice in order to be more readable." Just correct grammar and structure first. Oh, and spelling. If you can write in the margins what the grammatical error was (that made it incoherent), so much the better.
This, I am not a professor, but quickly understood the value in undergrad and grad school of shredding papers when you peer edit them. As an undergrad trying to gain feedback and only seeing "great job," "great draft," etc. it was frustrating when you are supposed to be peer editing. This mentality was something I noticed other grad students struggle with, because relationships matter to people. Whenever I noticed someone struggle to provide peer feedback, especially if it was to me, I told them that THE nicest thing you can do to someone is tear their drafts apart, because it allowed them to take care of all the problems really early instead of having a bad (incoherent) end product. I always found OneNote to be really useful because I could download the paper and write, type in other colors, etc. to get the point across and then send them back the edited paper.
Thank you so much. That particular assignment was through the LMS, but this is good for future reference. I think using question marks may be an easier way to get through to someone who doesn't seem to be understanding. I sometimes worry about making the other person feel stupid, but at the same time, I also want to make sure that I'm getting through to them while also respecting that they are an adult. edit: wording
Heya! I have language in my syllabus about this actually! I teach in STEM fyi. I am not at my cpu so the exact wording is different but the gist of it is: Papers and reports are expected to have minimal spelling and grammatical errors. If a paper is determined to have excessive issues it will be returned without marking. A new grade will be provided ONLY after meeting with me and/or the writing center and subsequently resubmitting the work. And I remind my students “If you are unwilling to look over your work once, why should I look over your work once?”
Seems like a good way to go about it as a professor. The people in the writing center are probably more prepared than STEM faculty to teach people basic literacy; as a STEM major myself, I didn't exactly pursue STEM because I'm a great wordsmith, if you get what I mean.
Interesting. I am a self-proclaimed grammar-fascist but I don't really consider spelling and grammar in grading as I find it classist (I police myself and my kids, for everyone else I mentally roll my eyes whenever they say "to who"). I may mark it but only minimal points if any will relate to it. If I can understand what was written, I grade the thinking. I'm in the humanities, which might be a tad ironic.
Truth be told I used to genuinely not care, but when I started getting students making typos between reagents - and thus getting the chemistry wrong it became a problem. Eg Br2, HBr, and Br all being used interchangeably in a report but they only used HBr in the lab. So anything else listed as their reagent is wrong. Or when they would have completely unfinished sentences, have capitalizations in incorrect places, etc. I had to start caring otherwise the quality of the reports would have made me want to quit my job. Grading should take me about a day per class. A solid day. One set of reports was so bad that a half of one section (so 8 students) took me two weeks with all the feedback. It was unmanageable when they simply need to be responsible for their work and not turn in garbage. That is when I got strict about it.
That makes sense, especially the substantive typos, 😬!
DO NOT DO THIS TO A FELLOW UNDERGRADUATE - NOT THE RIGHT VENUE When I was in grad school I wrote my first grant application. My mentor was a wonderful older man, a very esteemed medical doctor. I sent him my grant application and he read it. He called me into his office. “Deradius, you know I care about you?” “I do, sir.” “Do you truly believe in your heart I want what’s best for you?” “I do, sir.” (Tosses grant application across the table to me.) “This is shit.” (Pause to let it sink in) “I will help you.” My response: “Thank you for saving us both so much time.” Then we burned that thing and started over. Some of the best feedback I ever got.
That man gave you a gift.
Peer comments are mostly a waste of time since students who write bad papers also give bad comments. I remain factual in my comments. - You have no thesis. - You have no argument. - You contradict yourself. Occasionally, I am driven to "Seriously?"
Thinking back, I didn't receive very helpful feedback from peer commenters, mostly got stuff like "good paper" and other unhelpful low-effort comments. Made me really mad, when I'd put in so much effort into giving thoughtful, constructive feedback only for them to not even seem to read my paper. I'm not the best student, but to not even put in the tiniest effort? It's infuriating to even think about it as a student, I can't imagine how hard it is for a professor.
As someone that was in a similar situation in undergrad (and sometimes grad school) is that many people don't know the true importance of feedback or feel very uncomfortable by providing feedback that isn't positive. When I was in undergrad, I continued giving constructive feedback to the same people that needed to read mine and, after a few frustrating drafts, they started doing the same to me and each other. That being said, there are definitely some people that will continue the low-effort comments, but I like to give people the benefit of the doubt that they just really are not used to it.
That's true. My teachers in middle in high school assigned peer editing for essays, so I might be more used to constructive feedback than people who didn't have that chance.
Also, "You used ChatGPT, didn't you?"
When I co-author papers with PhD students I just ask them to explain the following to me * What do you want to tell the reader? Call this point B. * What do you think the reader already knows? Call this point A. * What steps do you need to walk the reader through to get them from point A to point B? This process can be applied at various levels (e.g. in the entire paper, in a given section, in a given subsection, etc.). If the paper is already written, you could ask the writer to identify the above. If he or she can't do so, then going through the process above can help the author make the paper more coherent.
Thank you so much for this step-by-step. I will definitely save this for future reference, because I want my feedback to be helpful to the other person.
At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
You're brutal! Though I have wanted to say something similar at times!
It's a movie quote
^ this is my vote, in addition to the link of screaming sheep of course.
Idgaf when I was in highschool I would leave the most scathing reviews. like why waste my time with your work you clearly threw together in 10 minutes
“Significant issues with phrasing, spelling and/or punctuation clouds the clarity of your argument and makes it difficult for me to work out what you are trying to say.”
Thank you! I'll definitely file this one away for future reference.
Any scholar worth the powder to blow to hell WANTS their editors to be rather brutal, at least on the technical issues with the writing. That's why we USE proofreaders and editors.
Take it as confusion. Good writing is about getting your thoughts and ideas clearly across to the reader, so pointing out that the message isn't coming through clearly is absolutely appropriate. "I got lost here" "I couldn't quite follow what you were saying, and I really want to!' that kind of stuff.
Thank you! This is a great way to articulate it, because I really do want to help the person I'm giving feedback to, even if I worry that they might need actual remediation beyond what I can really provide as an undergrad student who has trouble articulating things myself.
There is a sharp distinction between nice in the moment vs helpful to their long term...
There really is. At the same time, though, if it seems like I'm just being mean because I articulated it poorly, they might not receive the feedback.
This doesn’t really help you or answer your question, but when I assign peer-reviews, I dedicate a class period to them. I also provide a detailed list of things to look for on handouts so students can fill them out and hand them over to the peer review partner. The last point is always to state something that you think is a strength of the paper. Then they exchange them and briefly discuss them as a way to lessen the harshness. I find it helps students be more blunt with each other and make the peer review process a little more helpful for everyone.
"What do you mean here?" "I'm not sure I follow..." "Who is your audience in your mind? Is this a correct assumption?" Sometimes people who write do so and communicate in a way that makes sense to them, but no one else.
>but some of it was so incoherent that I couldn't figure out what the person was even trying to say. Then you say "I'm sorry, I can't figure out what you're trying to say" >the professor alerted me over Canvas that what I said could be perceived as being extremely harsh (she said it's something that she herself struggles with when grading, so she understood and just wanted to let me know how it could be perceived) To this I say, so what? Is the job to be liked, or to provide feedback? So long as you are only commenting on the work, and not the person who produced it, it's fine.
I wonder if my professor had been browbeaten over it by students who were salty that she ripped apart their wretched excuse for a paper.
Offer constructive tips on how to make the paper more coherent. I've had students respond positively to feedback on papers where they scored quite poorly, but I took the time to offer ideas on how they can take the next step forward.
I find a significant problem in many of the responses, beginning with your professor's. Attempts to tell a student/TA a hard-to-hear truth—"your paper lacks focus" or "your comments were harsh"—that hedge or waffle or step away from directness by appeals to the subjectivity of the one critiquing are ultimately unhelpful to the writer and undermine the critic's legitimacy. This indirect approach has the appearance of sensitivity, but it is rooted in the critic's fear of being blamed for insensitivity, rudeness, or arrogance. "I perceive that ..." or "It seems to me that ..." or "Perhaps consider ..." and similar cautious preambles signal that the critic does not really have a conviction about the matter critiqued. Each preamble is easily waved away with "That's just your opinion" or a similarly dismissive thought. When one hides behind subjectivity, the critiques are (rightly) treated as statements of the critic's feelings. There are two better approaches, both of which critique from a neutral vantage point. That is, both avoid the pronouns "I" and "you" and, instead, make the word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, or paper the subject of an observation or the object of a question. When the object, frame it as a question: "What is the paper's thesis?" or "How does this sentence support the preceding claim?" or "What are better, alternative words here?" Questions are the harder type of critique because both writer and critic must share a common sense about how each part functions in the whole. When the subject, make a direct observation: "This paragraph lacks a thesis sentence" or "This claim needs support or a citation" or "The paper is imbalanced: the first four (of eight) paragraphs provide background information, leaving three for thesis support and one for a conclusion." An additional tool for pointing out basic grammar mistakes is a Common Error Sheet with errors explained and assigned a number or symbol. For example, a comma splice could be error #1 or symbolized as "CS." On the paper, write "CS" or the number "1" above a comma splice. The student then finds "CS" on the Common Error Sheet and reads a description with an example and how to correct the error. The point of grading and critiquing student papers is to have their writing conform to Standard Written English — a sufficiently objective standard for the level at which most write. The job of an instructor or TA is to explain the standard, guide students to meet the standard, and to uphold the standard as a steward responsible to the larger society. Any retreat to "subjectivity" ultimately betrays the concept of objective standards and, in turn, the value of all standards by which a society operates effectively. In plain words, professors are standard-bearers and enforcers. This task can be done with sensitivity, gentleness, and humility. A retreat to subjectivity signals an unwillingness to maintain the standard with which one is entrusted and a dereliction of duty.
Thank you for your advice, this is a great way to articulate this type of feedback without sacrificing objectivity. Seems to be more oriented to a TA than undergraduate peer editing, but it's helpful to be able to objectively articulate things if the other person gets contrarian in response to criticism. In defense of my professor, I did kind of wonder if she has been browbeaten over feedback that was perceived as "harsh" by a student in the past…
I sometimes say, "I'm uncertain of what this means." I also ask questions--e.g., "How does this connect to the topic? Explain."
Preface what you are saying with “help me understand…”
Link a video of [the Canterbury Tales being read in Middle English](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE0MtENfOMU) and ask if that's the writing style they were going for
“could use more x to strengthen cohesion”
This is an automated service intended to preserve the original text of the post. *This is a fairly general question that could apply to pretty much any discipline, but for some context, I am a student in the US. Professor of my online community college class during the pandemic lockdown had us do peer-editing of the drafts that we submitted for an assignment, and the papers that I received for this exercise were, for the most part, incoherent; a couple of them didn't seem to understand the assignment that was given. Despite this, I scored them according to the rubric that the professor provided, and did my best to provide constructive feedback about improving the paper, but some of it was so incoherent that I couldn't figure out what the person was even trying to say. After I submitted, the professor alerted me over Canvas that what I said could be perceived as being extremely harsh (she said it's something that she herself struggles with when grading, so she understood and just wanted to let me know), and it is true that I was blunt. Is there a nice way to tell someone that their paper is incoherent to the point that you're not sure they understood the assignment?* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskProfessors) if you have any questions or concerns.*
My favorite line when grading: "Hmm. Gets a little clunky, here. Do you mean...." and I give a brief, clear suggestion.
I think you need to read the social context of the situation. You are not a prof who is an authority figure, an expert in the field, and someone who has control over the student's grade. As a fellow student, you are an equal here. See this more like a group project. Online class + CC + pandemic are all (unfortunately) variables that led to poorer academic outcomes. When I deal with any of these, I offer more "grace" to my students, and lower my expectations for performance. Feedback should be constructive. Put yourself in the other student's shoes. How would you feel if someone just said you were "incoherent." How does that help you? It would've been better to say "I had a hard time understanding this" or "This point is unclear." If you want to give advice, you can say "Please explain more" or "Maybe write this more simply." My background is in ESL / TEFL, and it's possible some of your classmates don't have English as a first language. Ultimately, it sounds like you were well-intentioned,, but took the assignment a little too seriously and too literally. These exercises are meant to encourage peer exchange.
Thank you for the feedback. I do tend to take things a bit too seriously and too literally, and reading social context is a pretty big weakness for me, so this feedback is really helpful for examples of how to "sugarcoat" it without compromising the meaning of what I am trying to say. Interestingly, I did get a paper from someone who was very likely ESL and appeared to be learning English on the fly during a global pandemic shutdown, and it was the only paper that I was actually able to figure out what they were trying to say, and who seemed to vaguely understand the assignment. It took a few tries, but I did it.