All of the points in this section are prime topics for discussions with supervisors. As these discussions progress, you should be looking to develop a common set of concepts about roles and writing.
Comments you get back on your writing can range far and wide. They can be of different types, requiring different kinds of revisions by the writer. Some- times it is difficult to translate the comment into action. It is not always clear – how could it be? – what the supervisor is seeing in what you have written and what he or she thinks you should have done.
It is not clear to what extent it is true that most students simply accept the feedback they get from their supervisors. In discussions of feedback they seem more concerned about simply getting any feedback on their writing at all and not waiting too long for it. They more rarely raise issues about the content and quality of that feedback.
You do not have to have ‘problems’ with your supervisor’s feedback in order to have such a discussion. See it as a way of enhancing communications. For that to be true, this discussion has to be a genuine dialogue, or as close to that as you can manage.
The following points are not intended to be read as a series; instead, one or two may raise important points you have not yet discussed explicitly with your supervisor.
After discussions
• Consolidate your understanding of good and bad writing.
• Confirm agreed forms of feedback.
• Confirm agreed writing tasks.
• Discuss the meeting with other students.
• Write right away and often.
• Target your revisions: do what you agreed to do first.
Discussing feedback
• What feedback will be/has been provided on your writing?
• When was this discussed/agreed?
• Is/are the type(s) of feedback you are getting explicitly signalled by your supervisor, i.e. on the page when it is returned to you? For example: ‘Overall comments’ and ‘Argument-specific points’.
• Do your supervisor’s different kinds of feedback require different responses from/actions by you?
• Do different comments require different revisions? Have these links been discussed explicitly? Does your supervisor have a method of signalling them?
• When will this subject be reviewed (in future discussions)?
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These questions might be a useful set of prompts for short bursts of free- writing. This could help you to work out what you think, where you are at and what you think your supervisor is doing, before you go into the discussion.
You could also freewrite about the different interpretations you can make of the feedback and the different revisions they might lead to. This would also be an interesting talking, or emailing, point for dialogue with supervisors. Use freewriting to start any new piece of writing arising from their comments.
Even if you have discussed your supervisor’s feedback form and norms with him or her explicitly, it cannot be assumed that thereafter there can be only one – nor that you will make the right – interpretation of what he or she wrote.
It would also save you time if you do happen to misinterpret the feedback, which, being realistic, must happen now and again. It will also, simply, be more writing practice for you.
Such discussions of feedback are not simply excuses to ask for what you
‘really want’. You have to be ready to make a strong case for what you think you need in your supervisor’s feedback. You have to manage carefully any statements that appear to criticize what your supervisor is currently providing.
Many supervisors are quite happy to be flexible; others will require more ‘ego management’ – by you. You are the one who is best placed to know how to approach this subject with your own supervisor. It might help, however, to discuss and rehearse your points with peers first.
Whatever the feedback you get on your writing, how do you convert it into action? If you are not entirely sure how to translate the feedback into action – or if you are not even sure of the meaning of some of the feedback – you can always write a response and email your supervisor a note of what you propose to do. This will give you – and your supervisor – a way of checking that you have understood the feedback. If, or once, you know each other well, you may think this unnecessary, a waste of time. However, a form of ‘reflecting back’
does provide an opportunity for further discussion and clarification. Further- more, later in the project you will indeed know each other’s ways, assumptions and operation practices very well, but there will be much more going on then.
It may still be a good idea to check that you have interpreted the feedback correctly. This is especially true if you receive – as is likely – more than one type of feedback. Your supervisor is likely to supply more than one form of feedback from his or her ‘typology’ at any one time.
You may also just get a word or phrase circled or underlined, as if supervisors expect you to know, or find out, what is ‘wrong’ with it or what requires revision, in their view. Again, if you have been working with them – and their feedback – for months or years, you may well not need any more than that. On the other hand, and earlier in the process, you may not know what they mean.
You will have to ask.
Supervisors may also only make a non-committal mark on your writing because they do not see it as their job to be your editor. Some would argue that it is not their job to ‘teach’ you the skills of scholarly writing – i.e. skills required for thesis writing – but that you should know these already or will
pick them up as you go along. The question of who exactly should ‘teach writing’ in a university is a matter of much debate in certain institutions; in others it is a matter of no debate at all. Who knows whether that is because there are no ‘writing problems’ or because there are few academic staff pre- pared to debate the issue and even fewer willing to take on the responsibility.
To be fair, some supervisors may feel that they do not have the knowledge or skills to teach writing. They recognize when something in your writing is wrong, but may not be able to explain to you why, technically, it is wrong.
Then there are those who are very well informed about writing. It is impossible to predict which position your supervisor will take in this debate or how much knowledge he or she has about writing. You have to find out for yourself.
Are the comments global or detailed or both? For supervisors, there is a decision to make about what type of feedback to give. Do they want to make you focus on the ‘big picture’ of your whole argument, or a section of it? Or do they want you to tidy up the style? Is clarification of terms paramount? Given that these are all quite different questions, requiring different focus and action, the supervisors may recognize that one is more important, at this stage, than the others. For example, they may decide that the priority is to get you to define and use key terms with more clarity. There may be other aspects related to clarity that they want you to work on and this would make for an effective theme in their feedback. You may have been expecting more feedback on what you think of as the ‘content’, but they see the use of terms – and assessing whether or not you can use them properly – as a priority. You can regard this as a tension between what you expect and what you get. Or you can accept that you have work to do – and who would not have – in clarifying what you have written.
This short narrative is designed to illustrate the types of interaction that occur between writing and feedback, between writer and supervisor and between the student’s expectations at different stages: your expectations will change in the course of your research.
There is another question: if you are looking for a certain type of feedback, why not ask for it? If you are frustrated that you have not had the feedback you expected, or that you need, then you should at least tell your supervisor what you think you need. There is, of course, no guarantee that you will get it, but you will at least have had your say and the ensuing discussion may clarify to you and your supervisor what you are both trying to do.
Some students are fearful that if they ask for something they ‘want’ the supervisor will be offended. This may be true. It may depend on how you raise the issue and how you ask for what you ‘want’. You may want to think about developing your verbal – and non-verbal – skills for this type of discussion. It is, in fact, a new type of discussion for most students. It might be a good idea to work this out sooner, rather than later, as there will surely be subjects about which you ‘disagree’ during the course of your research. It is almost inconceivable that two researchers – you and your supervisor – should agree on everything in the course of three or six years.
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If you are playing the role of the learner, aspiring to learn as much as you can during your research, and if you behave as the learner, using the word ‘learn’
explicitly, then there is every chance that supervisors will respond fairly to your requests. Some may even invite your feedback on their feedback.
However, writing is not your only means of demonstrating research expertise; you can use writing as a tool for learning and thinking: ‘Both think- then-write strategies and think-while-you-write strategies have utility in the context of academic writing’ (Caffarella and Barnett 2000: 40). The following sections of this chapter describe three strategies for thinking-as-you-write.