Writing Feedback and Gratitude

 

Dear Real Academics,

November is traditionally the month of giving thanks in the United States. Ever since my family moved here from Mexico, Thanksgiving has been one of my favorite holidays, and one that I love to share with friends I meet who come from around the world. It is a time for counting and sharing the many blessings in my life. For all the bad in the world -- and there's an insane amount of bad at the time I am writing this blog post -- it is good for the soul to give thanks for blessings, no matter how big or small.

This weekend, I provided writing feedback to about a dozen students in a small amount of time. These are students I have never met and that I do not teach. Some sent me whole dissertations. Some sent me small reflection paper assignments. Some sent me statistics assignments requiring a write-up. I thoroughly enjoyed providing them all feedback, but I'll be honest -- I was exhausted by the end of the weekend. (Hence, while this blog post is later than my usual rhythm). This is the bad part. The good part is that (a) I re-reflected on something I already knew related to writing and (b) I felt the positive weight of gratitude.

Allow me to elaborate, and I promise there are writing tips in the explanations that can help you, too: 

(a) What I already knew about writing: Writing is most productively accomplished in small chunks of time, not in long stretches. Some may disagree, but what happens when I write for TOO long of a time, is exactly what happened to me this past weekend: I was wiped out! And I didn't want to keep going. Luckily, I have a two-day break before my next batch of feedback, but still...I know I cannot sustain this type of intense work and not sacrifice the quality of my work and even my own health (I kid you not -- I felt as if my eyes were going to fall out and my back was in so much pain). So, my recommendation (from this experience and past experience) is to try to write regularly in smaller batches of time. Thankfully, I was able to readjust my schedule to batches throughout the weeknights vs. all during the weekend. I'll try to remember to report next week on how I'm feeling compared to now.

(b) What I learned about writing: Out of the dozen or so students I provided feedback to this weekend, three wrote me thank you emails. And they were sincere. You know how you can just kind of "tell" when something in writing is sincere or not in an email or text? There's a BIG difference in a "Thank you."  and a,  "Thank you, Dr. Huerta, for the feedback. It was really helpful." Well, I got the second type of thank you from the three students. Those three times really motivated me to keep going. This made me stop and ask myself how often I provide heartfelt gratitude to others when they provide me with feedback on my writing. Providing quality feedback requires a lot of mental energy (and, now I would argue, feedback is a form of writing...I need to think through this a bit more). So, I will consciously try to be more grateful the next time I receive feedback on my writing.

I hope this was helpful to you, dear Real Academics. And, since we are on the topic of feedback, we truly would be grateful for any feedback on our newly updated webpage. Even more, we'd appreciate if you all would encourage others to sign up for the weekly newsletter. Thank you!

Until next time,  keep on writing!

Maggie

www.therealacademics.com

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