Accepting and Utilizing Feedback in Graduate Studies: A Key to Academic Growth
In my 15+ years of teaching adult students, I’ve found one of the most challenging adjustments for them to be learning how to accept and implement feedback well. For my graduate students, I focus on this in the orientation course and my advice in grading extensively. I know from my teaching experience – but also my many years as a student – how valuable it is to learn to do this well early!
Feedback is normal and it requires context! The professor and student relationship requires the exchange of feedback. It is a very normal part of the process to hear what you did well what needs improvement.
Grad students are wise to remember that feedback also requires context. In this case, your context is grad school and feedback from a professor. Grad students tend to enroll in programs as very high achievers whose performance is noted as outstanding and who are often rewarded for that performance. We love that and expect that for our students! We want to admit just such students to this program. The “however” here matters.
However, high performing students are not always as open to feedback or receptive to advice on writing as they need to be in order to thrive in graduate programs. Students will do better work if they can start the journey being receptive to learning from professors – who are not only qualified to grade your work and required to but want to help you improve.
All of us have room to improve. I’ve been writing academically for a long time. I wrote a dissertation with well over 200 pages of content. I’ve had my writing published. But, really importantly: that does not make me perfect. That does not mean I have no room to grow!
When we write, our work tends to make sense to us as we review it, because it’s ours. There’s nearly always room for improvement in making our writing more coherent or digestible, in supporting our work with additional resources, etc.
Receiving & using feedback effectively means hearing feedback for what it is and learning to use it to improve your work. A solid goal to consider for yourself in the first two terms of a graduate program is to be less reactive and more proactive in the feedback process.
Submitting carefully written, thoughtfully crafted work that is well-edited and proofread thoroughly is a proactive step.
Firing off an angry response to your professor if you receive a lower grade than you thought you deserved is reactive.
Used well, feedback is a set of building blocks to help you – if you’re already writing “A papers” that’s great! But striving to achieve clearer arguments, better use of sources, and more focused, mature writing is good for you.
If you think you’re writing an A paper and a professor gives you a C, considering their feedback and reasoning, is once again – good for you!
Being pushed to improve is not a commentary on your value as a human! Rather, it is an invitation to be a part of the scholarly process and academic community. Writing needing improvement doesn’t make you a bad person – that’s not at all how this works!
The push for you to improve is an invitation to be a part of the scholarly process and a member of academic community – both at your university and beyond. Learning to accept feedback well and use it as a tool (instead of being offended by every correction along the way) is acknowledging that those of us who are further along the academic journey than you are here for a reason – we are qualified to do this work and want to partner with you in it.
The dialogue of feedback and the posture of acceptance in hearing that well is how you get there. Feedback is ultimately a coaching or mentoring process – but the person being coached or mentored must also choose to be a participant in that process for it to be effective.
If you are questioning every grade or bit of feedback…spend some time reflecting on that instinct! Participation means thoughtfully approaching feedback. Some students arrive to a program with a nearly instinctual response to question every grade or to disagree with professors on every bit of feedback. If you know you have that instinct already, it’s important to take some time to reflect on that and consider how you want to approach feedback in your program.
Conversations about work and feedback are reasonable approaches – line-by-line email rebuttals about how you were right…generally, not as much! Participation also means conversation with professors. I welcome students to conversation and dialogue about their work and feedback. I spend a lot of time each term talking with students about their work on Zoom, so we can view work together and talk through my feedback. However, students who send line-by-line email rebuttals about how they’re right and instructors are wrong, or unfair, or whatever else…aren’t engaging in dialogue.
Conversation requires more than just your professor. Every term I offer detailed feedback to students on assignments. Many respond positively and in thoughtful inquiry and dialogue. A few are less thoughtful. And some never respond or engage at all. Remember that participating in this academic invitation means you should be in conversation and dialogue with your professors throughout your courses.
Trust the process – and your professors. We have done this before…and we know how to coach you to the finish line! This process can feel a bit uncomfortable, especially at first. Teaching in a graduate program requires a terminal degree – so we’ve all done this before and had to learn to take the feedback on our own writing as coaching, not personal commentary! We do actually know what we’re doing!1
A graduate degree is a next step forward in academic community. Remember, that the scholarly work you’re asked to use to support your own writing is peer-reviewed and edited by other scholars. Academic community and learning disciplines holding themselves to high standards is a part of the deal. In school, your professors help you do that and to learn from it. If you write academically in the future, you’ll still get feedback from others. It’s just how it works! If you truly are starting a graduate degree thinking you have no room for improvement or conversation with a professor about where your work needs adjustment, I would seriously take some time to ponder why you are doing this.
Quality degrees from accredited institutions are earned. You can’t order it with two-day shipping. We do not give them out if you jump the right hoops in the right order. You’re honoring the work and yourself in the process.
Graduate study requires focus, determination, sacrifice, and respect of the process. And it will require learning from feedback. It is not meant to be easy or to require no work! You will be pushed and challenged. You will likely occasionally consider quitting (#askmehowiknow). But it will be worth it to earn your degree, receive your graduate hood, and walk across the stage at commencement knowing you did this.
More advice for grad students and graduate-level writing can be found here.
Of course, there are exceptions and less than high-quality professors in the world. That’s not the default and it should not be assumed to be!
