Feedback on writing at a writing for publication workshop for Emerging Technologies in Higher Education NRF project

1. Feedback on writing
Lynn Quinn

2. What is the difference between
responding to and marking a piece
of writing?

3. Responding
• Responding is process not product oriented
 people pay attention to the feedback
• Focus is on feedback for improvement rather
than on judging or giving a mark
• Purpose is to give constructive and formative
comments which will assist the writer to
revise his/her writing
• Providing writers with a sense of audience
through having a conversation with them

4. • Helping writers to consider their writing from a
reader’s point of view (how is the reader being
positioned?)
• Giving feedback on ‘content’, concepts, logical
development of argument
• Helping writers to express their
understandings in an appropriate genre for
intended purpose. Provide feedback against
specific criteria?
• Assisting writer to use the appropriate literacy,
conventions, etc.
• Giving constructive and encouraging
comments to develop the writers’ confidence

5. Kids from broken homes turn to
crime.

6. According to Smith and Jones (1999) 30% of
children between the ages of 9 and 18 from
homes where parents are divorced commit
some sort of petty crime such as shoplifting.

7. All white people are racists. They stole our
land and they should go back to Europe where
they belong!

8. Johnson (1999), in his research in the Gauteng
area, found that 34% of black people
perceived white people as racist with 19% of
those expressing the opinion that white
people should return to their countries of
origin.

9. Understanding academic literacy
involves
• learning how knowledge is produced and
represented in different disciplines and contexts, for
example, the conventions for what counts as an
acceptable argument or convincing evidence.
• learning the strategies for understanding, discussing,
organizing and producing texts in different disciplines
(e.g. structure, voice, referencing, explicitness, links
between theory and practice, vocabulary etc.)
• Genre of journal articles (differences)

10. The respondent should comment on
• Meaning, content, concepts
• Genre & academic literacy issues
– structure
– argument
– evidence
– cohesive devices
– voice
– explicitness
– positioning of the reader
– tentativeness, etc.
– Appropriate for specific purpose/specific journal
• Surface errors: Grammar, spelling, punctuation

11. Ways of responding to writing:
depends on individual & quality of
writing
• read whole paper first: prioritise issues; global
comments
• respond against specific journal criteria
• ask questions in the body of the text
• explicit and direct comments; clear and
specific strategies for revision
• relationship between in text-and summative
comments

12. Ways of responding cont..
• constructive, positive feedback
• comments to develop metacognitive knowledge
• respond as a reader to a specific writer (sense of
audience)
• avoid unfamiliar jargon
• do not take over the writing
• Tone?
• Track changes?