A thought about constructive criticism

When someone asks you to review something he wrote, here is a thought for you.

Do you see that sunset over there?

Constructive criticism is both of you trying to describe that sunset. The first response is the joy of the opportunity to see the view. The other person has made an attempt at describing it and has asked you to help in that description.

First, stop and enjoy his description; you were doing something else; you might have missed the view unless he drew your attention to it.

Now, what do you see that can perhaps add to what the other is seeing, so that the celebration might even be greater?

This is especially true if you know the other person. You know him or her, so when you read something that you think might mean this-or-that, but you know that person could not possibly mean such a thing, than your response ought to be a question, not a disagreement.

This is why I find papers written by my students at the end of a semester easier to grade, because by then I know them better than I knew them at first. Criticism then becomes a suggestion of how to word things better, rather than warning them that, hey, that sunset they think they see over there is really a hallucination.

That would be destructive criticism, not constructive criticism.

There always must be humility, because we do not make the sunsets, we only learn to describe them better.

Logos2Go

Matthew 17.24-27 When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax went up to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the tax?” He said, “Yes.” And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tax? From their sons or from others?” And when he said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are free. However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel. Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself.”