Giving and receiving peer feedback
"This should be more interesting" isn't feedback — it's a mood, not a note anyone can actually act on. Good feedback, whether you're giving it or receiving it, is one of the most underrated skills in academic work: nearly every paper, thesis, or presentation that's genuinely strong went through at least one round of a peer honestly telling the author what wasn't working yet.
Giving good feedback
- Be specific. "This should be clearer" helps nobody. "In paragraph 3, your thesis says the paper is about X, but this paragraph seems to be about Y — I got confused about which one you meant" gives the writer something concrete to fix.
- Point to the exact location. Reference a specific paragraph, sentence, or slide rather than a vague overall impression, so the writer isn't left guessing where the problem actually is.
- Explain why something isn't working, not just that it isn't. "This paragraph is confusing" is less useful than "I lost track of who 'they' refers to halfway through this paragraph."
- Balance strengths and weaknesses. Feedback that's entirely critical is discouraging and, ironically, often less actionable — noting what's working well helps the writer understand what to keep, not just what to change.
- Frame it around the work, not the person. "This argument doesn't fully address the counter-evidence" lands very differently from "you didn't think this through" — same substance, very different tone, and only one of them is useful.
- Suggestions, not just problems. Where you can, offer a concrete idea for how to fix an issue, not just a flag that one exists — though it's also fine to just flag a problem honestly if you don't have a ready solution.
Receiving feedback well
- Separate the feedback from your sense of self-worth. Critical feedback on a draft is about the draft, not a verdict on you as a researcher or writer — genuinely hard to internalise at first, but worth actively practising.
- Ask clarifying questions if a comment is vague or you're not sure what specifically to change, rather than guessing or dismissing it.
- Don't defend every point in the moment. You don't have to justify or argue back against every piece of feedback as you receive it — you can listen, say thank you, and decide later, calmly, what to actually act on.
- Not all feedback needs to be taken. Reviewers and peers can disagree, and you're allowed to weigh feedback against your own judgement — but be honest with yourself about whether you're rejecting a note because it's genuinely wrong, or just because it's uncomfortable to hear.
- Look for patterns across multiple reviewers. If several people independently flag the same issue, that's a strong signal it's a real problem, even if each individual comment felt minor on its own.
Why is this important?
Writers are usually the worst-positioned people to spot their own weak points — you already know what you meant, which makes it hard to see where a reader wouldn't. Peer feedback exists specifically to fill that blind spot, and it only works if the feedback given is specific enough to act on and received without becoming defensive. This connects directly to Academic Writing Style: asking a peer whether your writing is actually clear is often the single most reliable way to find out.
Tips
- Ask for feedback at multiple stages (outline, first draft, near-final draft), not just once at the very end when there's little room left to act on it.
- When asking for feedback, tell the reviewer what stage you're at and what kind of feedback would help most (big-picture structure vs. line-level wording) — it focuses their effort where it's actually useful to you.
- Reciprocate. Being on the giving end of feedback regularly is itself one of the best ways to sharpen your own self-editing skills.
- Give yourself a short cooling-off period before revising in response to tough feedback — acting immediately, while still stung by it, tends to produce either overreactions or defensive dismissals.
References
Guide to Writing Peer Review Feedback
Enago Academy — 5 Smart Tips for Providing Constructive Feedback