Let’s talk about essay feedback, shall we?
Specifically, let’s look at exactly how you should respond if you get a negative feedback for your college essay.
Here’s the thing:
You’re going to write different essays in college. To score A-grades, you’re going to have to give every topic your very best shot.
You’ll do well in some essays and perform poorly in others. Somehow, you’ll get some brutally negative feedback from your professor, sometimes enough to make your heart sink to the deepest end – and you’re going to get extremely angry.
So, let’s show you exactly how to manage negative feedback for your college essay, without ever having to cross paths with your professor.
Key Takeaways
- The intention of negative feedback isn’t to make you feel or look dumb. Rather, it’s to help you write relevant essays in the future so that you can score exceptionally good grades.
- Instead of getting mad at your professor for negative essay feedback, evaluate the feedback, look at the areas that need improvement, and write better essays.
- Don’t hesitate to approach your instructor with questions if you have to, but do so in a way that expresses your concerns about the quality of your writing.
How to Manage Negative Feedback for Your College Essay
Criticism doesn’t make anyone happy, but it serves a significant purpose of helping you to assess the quality of your essay.
Based on the feedback you receive, you can determine how much time and effort you need to enhance your essay writing skills to achieve better grades.
It’s important to understand that your instructor’s intention is not to seek retribution. Their role is to ensure that you are putting in the required input to succeed in college. They will acknowledge and praise your well-executed work, while also providing constructive criticism if your performance falls short.
So if you get negative feedback for your essay:
1. Keep Calm
Uncertainty surrounds the kind of feedback you might receive as your instructor reviews the assignment. If anything, the feedback can swing in either direction, and therefore you need to keep calm and have the mindset to handle any type of feedback.
Undoubtedly, positive feedback will make you feel proud of the work you’ve done.
Negative feedback, on the other hand, may leave you feeling uneasy. If this is the case, it is crucial to remain calm and composed. Even if it seems like your instructor’s feedback is excessively negative, it is important not to take it personally.
Maintaining a calm stance is a clear indication that you did your best, even if your instructor didn’t necessarily see that in the first place.
2. Develop a Growth Mindset
One ineffective approach to handling negative feedback on your essay is to read your instructor’s comments and take them personally.
It’s essential to consider their perspective: they want you to improve your essay writing skills to achieve higher grades. Therefore, avoiding personalization is the complete opposite of adopting a growth mindset.
As you engage with the feedback, adopt the mentality that you can utilize it as motivation to enhance your writing, regardless of any shortcomings in the current project.
By embracing a positive mindset, you take ownership and responsibility for your education. You even proactively seek out opportunities and guidance to enhance your future writing skills.
3. Read and Evaluate Feedback
This step requires significant effort, but it greatly helps in identifying the areas where you made mistakes initially.
Begin by reading and re-reading your lecturer’s feedback with an open mind. Take note of the most crucial points mentioned in the review. Next, carefully read your essay and actively look for the mistakes you made. Mark them down to ensure you have a solid starting point for your essay editing process.
While it may take some time to read the essay from the opening sentence to the concluding paragraph, it provides a clear understanding of why your professor made specific comments about your writing in the first place.
This process not only helps you identify where you went wrong but also highlights areas that require improvement.
4. Ask the Right Questions
Merely reading and analyzing feedback may not always be sufficient for revision purposes. To improve, you need to take the extra step of involving your instructor in the revision process, even if you feel it might inconvenience them.
It is important to remember that receiving negative essay feedback from them signifies their desire for your growth and improvement. Therefore, you should not hesitate to seek clarification by asking questions related to their negative review.
When engaging your instructor, it is crucial to ask the right questions.
Rather than attempting to dispute their critique of your argument on a specific claim, ask them if they would mind sharing how you could have formulated and defended the claim in a more effective way.
By asking the appropriate questions, you can:
- Understand the key areas you should have focused on.
- Discover ways to enhance your writing skills.
5. Don’t Hesitate to Ask for Writing Help
When faced with the need to rewrite your essay from scratch, asking for academic writing help can make a big difference.
At Help for Assessment, our goal is to help you edit your essay in a way that demonstrates a positive response to the negative feedback you received.
With our dedicated team of writers available at the click of a button, there is no need to worry about receiving negative feedback in the future. We are here to ensure that the essays you write align with the assignment prompt and written well for the A-level grades.