Don't Underestimate your Writer

I like that the text addressed that the writers ALREADY KNOW what sucks about their paper, they just don’t know how to fix it. That happened when I edited this week. My writer even said before we began that she knew her writing was all over the place, and sure enough she did have a problem with flow. I think it is important to validate that writers are intelligent and know what is bad, and not treat people like idiots for making mistakes. In one of my other communication classes this semester, I had a professor who did that. I felt that nervousness that the text talks about, and every time she would slash at my paper and my self-esteem. I like that the readings said that the world is full of bad editors, and those editors have good ideas, they just don’t know how to communicate them. That was her. She was a flat-out bad editor. She was great as a person, and she had lots of good ideas, but she just didn’t know how to communicate them in a way that didn’t sound like “This sucks so bad I can’t even look at it.”

With her in mind, I approached this assignment with great care. I didn’t want to slash someone’s self-esteem, but I also didn’t want to say “This piece is perfect,” when it is my job to tell them how to improve. I work at a call center, and I used to be a monitor there. We would listen to people’s calls and grade them on their professionalism, speed, tone and friendliness. When we were giving feedback, we used what is called the sandwich approach, which is something I highly recommend. It is basically “sandwiching” the bad stuff inside layers of good stuff. So you first tell them something they did well, or something you liked, so that it starts of in a positive direction and they don’t immediately get hit with disapproval. Then after you have told them something you like, you tell them something that they could improve. You explain what they did wrong, and then to end you tell them something positive again. That way they can go on their way on a good note, not feeling like we hate them because they messed up. 

Here is my grammar mistake for this week.