Most professors believe that clear and effective writing is important in all levels of psychology and in most of the professions for which we are training our students. And most professors give their students writing assignments because they believe that practice will improve students’ writing. And as part of this process, most professors (and their teaching assistants) believe that their feedback will improve the quality of students’ writing, so they spend countless hours providing written comments on these papers (after all, psychologists have long known that practice without feedback is futile, right?). Of these three assumptions, probably only the first one is true.
via www.psychologicalscience.org
Interesting article. I was tempted to joke that you could replace "professors" with "managers" and "students" with "aspiring screenwriters" (NOT "clients"), but I there are enough comments about the particulars of students' writing habits that I know I'd get in (unintended) trouble. In any case, I think it makes sense to use a set of standardized feedback like the list in the article. Not unlike the now-ubiquitous (and for good reason) Save The Cat! structure.
[Hat tip to Anne Thompson for retweeting the link to the article.]
Comments