I've been thinking about joining here for some time. I love writing. It's been my hobby since high school, and in college I earned a BA in English with a concentration on writing lit and poetry. But something is holding me back a little which is why I haven't fully joined yet. May I explain?
I've had very bad luck with groups and peer reviews. I mean train wreck kind of bad. It started when I was in college in Eng 1 & 2. When we wrote papers, we had to do something called "peer editing sessions" or "peer reviews." Basically, everyone exchanged papers, sometimes done through an online portal, and made notes on a fellow student's paper to suggest improvement. These were never helpful to me until later in college when I was with others who were there because they wanted to be, not because they had to be. I'm not being trying to be obnoxious, but remember my specific education in this area started before I entered college and much of it just came naturally. But I digress.
Anyway, a young man I was in class with looked over my paper and declared it to be "good." That's it. No editing, no advice, nada. I looked over his and holy moly it was a mess. Missing punctuation, no thesis, awkward wording, typos, the whole shebang. I patiently made notes (and not rudely!) to suggest improvement. Upon seeing that I didn't declare his work to be stellar, he went back into mine and made random nasty comments. This resulted in the professor apologizing to me over the other student's behavior.
In one of my creative writing classes, it was the same story. The piece I was given to review and edit had forced metaphors that didn't work and changing POV (a no-no in writing). I gave my honest and *not snarky* opinion and advice, like I was supposed to. The reply I received from her was...let's say not ladylike. Different person, different piece, different professor, but ended the same way: the professor reaching out to me to apologize for another student's behavior.
Most of the time, editing and review sessions ended with me just being told "good" with no advice, or being given advice that was seriously wrong because they didn't know any better or were retaliating. It's been my experience that when sharing, most people just want validation, not improvement.
Please, please, please, tell me I'm being silly and won't find that here!
I've had very bad luck with groups and peer reviews. I mean train wreck kind of bad. It started when I was in college in Eng 1 & 2. When we wrote papers, we had to do something called "peer editing sessions" or "peer reviews." Basically, everyone exchanged papers, sometimes done through an online portal, and made notes on a fellow student's paper to suggest improvement. These were never helpful to me until later in college when I was with others who were there because they wanted to be, not because they had to be. I'm not being trying to be obnoxious, but remember my specific education in this area started before I entered college and much of it just came naturally. But I digress.
Anyway, a young man I was in class with looked over my paper and declared it to be "good." That's it. No editing, no advice, nada. I looked over his and holy moly it was a mess. Missing punctuation, no thesis, awkward wording, typos, the whole shebang. I patiently made notes (and not rudely!) to suggest improvement. Upon seeing that I didn't declare his work to be stellar, he went back into mine and made random nasty comments. This resulted in the professor apologizing to me over the other student's behavior.
In one of my creative writing classes, it was the same story. The piece I was given to review and edit had forced metaphors that didn't work and changing POV (a no-no in writing). I gave my honest and *not snarky* opinion and advice, like I was supposed to. The reply I received from her was...let's say not ladylike. Different person, different piece, different professor, but ended the same way: the professor reaching out to me to apologize for another student's behavior.
Most of the time, editing and review sessions ended with me just being told "good" with no advice, or being given advice that was seriously wrong because they didn't know any better or were retaliating. It's been my experience that when sharing, most people just want validation, not improvement.
Please, please, please, tell me I'm being silly and won't find that here!
