I have to be honest that when I first received critical feedback on my research ideas as a graduate student, I felt extremely disappointed in myself, and actually personally hurt. Until that moment, I had largely received positive feedback or gentle criticism from professors on my academic work. Did this strong criticism mean that I did not belong in a graduate program?
After a few years of receiving many more rounds of critical feedback, I learned a few lessons about critiques, and I grew to understand why feedback is incredibly useful as a social scientist. Here is what I have learned about feedback:
1. Receiving criticism is a compliment When an academic is sharing their perspectives on your work, this should be considered a compliment to you and your work. Developing critical feedback is an exercise that takes effort and time. Therefore, when an academic provides you with critical feedback, it usually means that they see your work as worth their effort and time. This is valuable to keep in mind as budding scholars!
2. Critiques help you grow and learn as a scholar – Reading and understanding feedback on your work is an excellent way to learn about the limitations of your research, identify any gaps in logic in your writing, and explore the various views that exist in your area of research. Remember that as graduate students, our mission is to learn—it is completely unrealistic to expect a perfect first draft. In reality, the dissertations and manuscripts that you read are a product of many iterations of feedback and revisions. In addition, understanding the various views that exist in your field will help prepare you to address counterarguments in your research writing, and defend your research decisions . This knowledge is an incredibly useful when exploring a research field and topic. Overall, receiving feedback is essential to growing as a scholar.
3. Receiving feedback bolsters your own critical thinking – Following from the previous point, receiving feedback will give you a stronger grasp of your research field, including key concepts, methodologies, and philosophies. This knowledge will help you develop your own critical thinking skills as a scholar, and will eventually lead to a stronger ability to evaluate other research. In this way, the feedback process seems to come to a full circle process, beginning from the starting point of asking if you belong in academia to finding yourself becoming more confident in your own ability to providing others with useful feedback.
Thinking about feedback now, as I am in the final year of my PhD, I understand how it has helped me to grow. Receiving critical feedback does not mean that you do not belong in academia; instead, it means that you are continuously learning and growing! I now appreciate sharing my work and gathering perspectives on it, because this process ultimately leads to a stronger end product. That being said, it can sometimes still be challenging to receive criticism on my work, and I expect this to be the case for all academics. Therefore, I have a few final tips for digesting feedback: try not to attach your self to your work (because it will likely change) and do not read feedback as soon as you receive it (instead find a time where you will feel mentally prepared). Finally, take your time (and perhaps have a bit of ice cream ready) to process the feedback after you read it.
Hope this helps, and good luck with receiving feedback on your research!
-Ashna
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