Comments on: Put Your Comments In A Table

By: Damian

Damian — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 00:47:22 +0000

I’ve thought about this approach many times in the last few years, and have even gotten as far as creating my own table of comments. My problem is that in trying to apply comments, I always find myself wanting to write more to clarify and tailor the comment to the particular clause, sentence, or concept on which I’m commenting. I just collected two batches of papers from two different classes with every intention of doing this (your post brought it back to mind), but I chickened out instead and wrote comments.

I went out like a sucka.

It’s a mental block I just can’t get around. All’s not lost, though, as I feel I’m at least getting better at giving feedback. I’m no longer spending an hour per paper, like I did with my first batch of To Kill a Mockingbird essays so many years ago.

By: Todd

Todd — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 03:09:06 +0000

Ah! That’s actually a different way of commenting that I’ll be sure to write about in a bit. The table I discuss here is something that only the teacher sees. It’s a table of seemingly tailor-made comments that can easily be written at the end of a paper. But really, it’s just one of several cookie-cutter comments that apply because most batches of papers exemplify the same series of errors.

Phuoc, in the last few years I’ve taken to writing a lengthy comment at the end of the paper instead of circling all mistakes throughout the paper. This entry was all about how to get a list of lengthy comments that a teacher can write at the end of each paper without having to expend the intellectual energy that it takes to craft these comments. But they are still completely appropriate comments to leave on a paper.

Yeah, the table you’re thinking of is good, too. And it’s nice to know that it abstracts things a bit so they are less personal. Good feedback. Just wish I could get that honesty from current students.

By: Paul Phuoc

Paul Phuoc — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 11:53:48 +0000

You did that years ago, and I found the table to be quite useful. I remember receiving quite a few 4s (awkward sentence), maybe some 5s (stupid wording) and once I got a 9 (your paper sucks). Way to ruin a prospective English major…not really. Here’s actually some decent feedback:

Sometimes when I really enjoyed a book we read in class, I’d put more effort into writing the paper due that Friday. When my paper came back, reddened with comments, I’d look at it as some personal attack directed at my style of writing, and probably made me lose some sleep that night.

Commenting using the table sytem made it less impersonal, as if getting 3s and 4s were normal. I don’t know about the other students, but it gave me the confidence to come in after class/school to have you clarify the comments and open up for additional instructions to improve the paper.