Best Practices for Giving and Receiving Feedback

Joela Jacobs and Jeannette Oholi

This project emerged out of a conversation around academic feedback practices between Luisa Banki, Hannah Eldridge, Joela Jacobs, and Jeannette Oholi. The peer review of a project in which we were involved in different capacities had prompted questions about how to improve the process. Recognizing that peer review experiences can potentially be demoralizing for everyone involved, Jeannette and Joela decided to create a one-page sheet with best practices for feedback on academic work at a glance. 

We were inspired by the one-pager for “Avoiding Gender Bias in Reference Writing,” which was produced by the Commission on the Status of Women at the University of Arizona, and Wendy Laura Belcher’s book Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks (2009). Drawing on the aforementioned resources’ investment in practicality, we sat down to compile the advice about academic feedback practices that resonated and had been helpful to us. We quickly realized that we needed two sheets: one for giving and one for receiving feedback, since the practical considerations, emotional responses, and power differentials vary so much in these situations.

Because our project is about feedback, we reached out to comrades via the DDGC listserv and asked them to share their ideas and make suggestions for revisions on the material we compiled. Our colleagues Sarah Colvin, Julia Ludewig, Claire Ross, and Kathryn Sederberg offered suggestions and asked generative questions. They also suggested additional resources for us to consider, such as the recording of a recent workshop hosted by the journal German Quarterly titled “Framing Feedback.” After finalizing the guide in English, Isabel Holt volunteered to translate it into German. 

You can now access both of the guides we created below. Each is available in a visually appealing layout designed by Jeannette for printing and digital sharing as well as in a more accessible version. We hope that students and scholars will find the guide useful and will share it with their networks. In particular, we imagine that journal editors might make use of it by sending it to their peer reviewers, authors, and special issue editors. Perhaps it can be a good resource for graduate or undergraduate course assignments that involve peer review or more detailed feedback components. 

Most of all, we hope that you will make these resources your own! If you do, please let us know about your experiences! Moreover, we welcome your feedback as we continue refining and expanding these forms. You can reach us at joelajacobs@arizona.edu and oholi.jeannette@gmail.com.

Bibliography

Belcher, Laura. Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks. University of Chicago Press, 2009.

Files

Feedback Guide (Deutsch)
Feedback Guide (English)
Feedback Guide Color (Deutsch)
Feedback Guide Color (English)