As a teacher I think it’s easy to lose sight of the effect our feedback can have on our students. I was chatting about this with a colleague this morning. Sometimes, instead of calmly pointing out mistakes and providing careful constructive criticism we just want to tear our hair out, screaming…WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! Of course, I don’t know that this would really have the desired result….although it might make us feel better in the short term!

This was really brought into sharp relief for me today when I received a paper back from a reviewing process. The editor of the issue had taken great pains to give a lot of constructive criticism in a positive and encouraging way, emphasising that it’s nearly ready for publication. And the effect of this on me was to think confidently about my ability to make the required changes in a timely manner.

It’s not always like this when review comments are returned from journals. The power of the written word is great indeed, especially when the reviewers make little effort to be constructive or helpful in their criticism. And in these instances my reaction is usually to go into a mild panic and not know where or how to begin revising. I know in writing academic articles it would be nice to be able to separate ourselves from our work, but for me the reality is that my research is a part of who I am, so that line is often very blurred.