North West Social Science Doctoral Training PartnershipHelena Kitto, Socio-legal Studies, Keele University (2019 cohort)
If you’re reading this, and you’re anything like me, then you’re familiar with some version of the phrase “I hate feedback”. Not in so many words maybe, my version of this expression is four letters long and is uttered a bit like a prayer when I see the email notification in my inbox that my supervisor has finally finished reading a piece of writing I’d already forgotten about. Depending on their feedback, the next few sentences might also be expressed in a similar fashion.
It’s a bit humiliating to admit, to be honest, because I thought I was long past the point of getting embarrassed or emotionally invested in feedback. Sometimes, the only way I can bring myself to submit anything is by subjecting myself to a pep talk about how 90% of academic writing is feedback, and that nobody writes a perfect first draft, or we wouldn’t need supervision, etc. I hate to admit it, but I can find it instantly demoralising when I receive critical or negative feedback. It often feels like running into a brick wall if you’ve been working at something for a while, you think you’re expressing yourself eloquently, and then you get a comment saying that the unfortunate reader hasn’t got a clue what you’re on about. And that’s before I feel embarrassed for reacting like a teenager getting their homework back with red writing. I’m meant to be more mature and self-confident as a student by now, surely?
The fact is, the most transformative aspect of undertaking any kind of doctoral level writing so far (that I’ve found, at least) is just how used to getting your work read back you have to be. I remember when I was studying to be a social worker as an undergraduate student, and one of our course leaders decided to film us conducting mock interviews with volunteers for an assignment. To practice, we had to rehearse with other students, film our interactions, and then analyse these in excruciating detail, picking over everything from our tones of voice to our body language. It was torture. To this day, I occasionally get nightmares about watching myself through a camera, in what I was convinced at the time was a flattering cardigan. There is something extremely intense about scrutinising, and listening to other people scrutinise, sincere but clumsy attempts to identify limitations and improve practice, and writing up my work for my thesis has thrown it all into sharp relief again.
There’s a bit of cliché that when you write something, it’s your baby that you’ve spent weeks over (or in some cases, hours, specifically the 24 before the deadline). It’s perfect, and the polite thing for people to do is to tell you how lovely it is and well done. Then what happens in reality is people tell you your baby is ugly, you haven’t spent enough time working on it, and you have to go back and try again. The metaphor’s a bit tortured maybe, but basically, the long and short of the idea is that writing, like any other creative task, requires not a small amount of energy, time, and brainpower that can leave you feeling emotionally attached to the end product of your labour, whether it has academic merit or not.
While these feelings are understandable, and natural, they’re definitely not always the most helpful when you’re trying to improve your writing. Unfortunately, in order to improve your practice at anything, you not only have to be willing to do it poorly, you have to be willing to engage with the necessary reflective processes that critically analyse why and how you are doing it poorly. It’s uncomfortable to grapple with, and that’s before juggling extra factors in like anxiety, and financial or time pressures to complete and submit. It’s a process I am having to learn not to shrink from.
Engaging with the writing up process requires resilience and transparency with oneself about the level of one’s own ability, but it can also be a positive and transformative experience as well. I’ve learned to cope with it a bit like going to the dentist, or getting a vaccine. It’s an unpleasant part of maintaining and developing your academic skillset. In fact, responding well to feedback is a skillset in its own right. I have a friend who is about to start their writing up year, and they love failure. It makes them positively gleeful when they get feedback about what they need to improve, or when they get told to re-submit an assignment. (It’s true, I’ve seen it with my own eyes). I’ll admit, I haven’t reached that level of student-feedback zen, but I’m jealous of it. It’s a productive mindset to inhabit, recognising that failure and criticism are constructive elements of learning. It actually helped me realise a few important things to note when dealing with emotional reactions to feedback:
- If you’re frustrated, and you poured a lot of time and energy into your work, but for some reason it’s not coming through, bring this up. You can’t solve a problem by ignoring it, and if anything it usually makes it larger.
- Everyone, but everyone, at some point has hated their writing and felt as if criticism is a sign of their incompetence as a writer. It’s a part of the process.
- Doctorates are isolating. Chances are, everything you’re feeling, another student has felt before. It helps to talk to your peers.
I got told by my supervisor when I started my doctorate that one day I would look back on my thesis and think it was the worst thing I’ve ever written. The idea being that when you write, academically or otherwise, you are in a constant state of improvement, so your work keeps getting better and better over time as you receive and incorporate feedback, until even huge efforts like a thesis seem far behind you in terms of development. (Clearly, I’m an extremely advanced student because I have already arrived at the viewpoint that my thesis is the worst thing ever written). But I am proud of making progress now in a way I wasn’t before I began my writing-up period, because now it represents the fruits of my emotional labour as well as my academic efforts.
North West Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership 
Thank you Helena, this is really helpful and speaks (apart from the Zen part), also of my own experience. Now I know I’m not the only one!
I positively hate receiving feedback and in fact I dread it. I almost gave up last year as time and time again my work was criticised and I was told to do it again. My self-esteem plummeted and my mental health was affected. The chapter that caused me so much pain got me through my confirmation panel with positive comment (at last) and so I can see that the pain was worthwhile. I can now see my work was substantially better for the feedback and revision. Now I am about to begin writing again and I’m trying to steel myself for what is to come.
It is brave of you to share your experience and your blog is much appreciated!
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