Giving writing feedback is the process of reviewing and critiquing the writing of other authors and providing suggestions and advice on improvements. Giving feedback can also involve the reviewer editing. reworking and rewriting the author’s text to demonstrate how improvements can be made.

The different types of reviewer
There are different types and roles of reviewer depending on the type of document: 

 There is considerable overlap in reviewers’ tasks and the role of providing instructional feedback will vary:
 -The manager / supervisor / boss may instruct how writing should be improved.
 - Co-authors may prefer a certain style or suggest how something should be written or changed.
 - The peer reviewer and examiner role often provide limited instructional feedback as their primary role is to assess and validate what is written for accreditation or publication.
 - Peers or colleagues may give useful suggestions on how to improve writing based upon their experience and background, and knowledge of your project.
 - Educators, such as myself, may give feedback on all aspects of writing through a teaching framework.
 - If appropriate, an intended audience member (reader) can provide feedback on how well the writing can be understood and satisfies their needs.

The remainder of this blogpost will not include discussion of peer-reviewers of research papers and thesis examiners.

Issues with the feedback process

The process is often informal and ad-hoc
Sometimes, a writer will just ask a colleague, ‘Can you have a look at this?’ then the colleague makes a few comments and gives it back. As this process is not controlled it can lead to a few problems:
- You may receive feedback that is not appropriate to your stage of writing. For example: If your early draft is a loose collection of ideas and you only want feedback on the overall direction of your topic, receiving instruction on punctuation might not be helpful.
- Some feedback may be out-of-scope, off-topic or based on misunderstandings. This can happen if the writing submitted for feedback lacks context, includes unnecessary details or is unclear. These issues can arise as a normal part of the reviewing process. Therefore, giving feedback on the feedback you receive may be necessary. Or it may be necessary to discuss the feedback with the reviewer to let them know they misunderstood you.

Some reviewers can also:
 - do too much rewriting for the author, which reduces the opportunity for the writer to improve their writing skills.
 - give insufficient or unclear feedback.
 - make too many comments and make too many changes at once.
 - consider themself to be ‘in charge’ and dictate to the author exactly what to write. This may be necessary, depending on the circumstances and roles of the reviewers. However, wherever possible, let authors use their own words and phrases to say what they mean. This is part of the process of developing an unique writing style.
- only focus on minor editing tasks instead of critiquing the meaning.

Many of these issues are not insurmountable or necessarily preventable and can get fixed during the editing and feedback process. However, effective communication between the author and reviewer is essential. If you receive any advice or instruction that you think will reduce the accuracy of your writing, then discuss these issues with your reviewers.

Steps you can take to provide effective feedback
Be wary of relying on ‘Track Changes’ in Word
- Avoid the temptation to rewrite to improve the meaning using ‘Track Changes’. This allows the writer to ‘Accepts All’ of your changes; they will then be using your wording and not working on rewriting it themselves. Instead, describe the problem and encourage the author to rewrite any problem phrases or sentences themselves.
- If you do need to provide example rewrites of sentences, use the comments feature within ‘Track Changes’ or create a separate document.

When giving suggestions on how writing could be improved:
- Avoid insisting your changes are adopted.
- Avoid giving too much feedback and making too many comments in the one draft. I once saw a supervisor’s feedback on a student’s literature review that was so dense and full of comments that there wasn't any room for the student to do their own thinking and come to their own conclusions about the issues raised.
- Be polite and respectful.
- Avoid using emotional criticisms. e.g. ‘this is crap’ or ‘why did you think this was a good idea?’

Critique – don’t criticise
You can make your feedback constructive, by thinking of it as a critique, rather than a criticism. I define criticism as concluding that something is bad or wrong with the writing and/or using language that makes the writer feel bad about their writing. Criticism can imply that the writer ‘should have known better’ and that it’s not ok to make mistakes. Whereas, critiquing is when you conclude something is unfinished, has room for improvement or is not ready for publication. Critiquing a document is a process that seeks to improve its quality by identifying both merits and problems and learning (teaching) how to solve these problems. What should follow on directly from a critique is suggestions for improvement and what to do next.

Attempt to explain why something is unclear
- Just stating something is unclear is often not helpful. Explaining why something is unclear is not always easy but it greatly helps the writer to understand the issue, it improves your ability to critically analyse writing, and it indirectly improves your own writing.

Don’t be afraid of being wrong: use cautious language
I always use cautious language when I'm giving feedback. If I have a suggestion or an idea, I try to start with ‘perhaps’. For example, ‘Perhaps you could break this sentence into two’. This allows the author to then accept or reject your suggestions.

As I primarily teach when giving feedback, I always give a disclaimer stating, “as I'm not an expert in your field, please disregard anything you think is not correct or appropriate to your project”. However, I do stipulate that if I find the meaning unclear, vague or ambiguous, to consider reworking your wording or perhaps ask your colleagues for a second opinion.

Encourage authors to critique your feedback
If the writing is unclear or not easily understood due to topic complexity, you may have misinterpreted the meaning and then provide incorrect feedback. If you encourage authors to critique your feedback, you can quickly solve any misunderstandings, you are directly involving them in the process of improving the document, and you may also learn to further improve your feedback skills. If appropriate, encourage continued communication after feedback has been provided.