Comments

Each time I return a paper to you, whether draft or revision, you’ll receive comments on the paper. For revisions, you’ll receive a grade as well. Comments are a crucial part of the writing instruction that occurs in this course. I’m aware of no other Writing Program in the country that emphasizes the importance of paper comments as much as we do here at Harvard, and – even at Harvard – you’re unlikely to receive the extent of comments that you’ll see in our course ever again. I think you’ll find, as many past students have said, that the comments you receive on your papers are one of the most helpful areas of the writing instruction in our course.

Read these comments carefully: they will help you revise, and will help you think about the next essay assignment (as well as essay assignments in other courses). The comments will be most helpful to you if you keep a few things in mind:

  • Read final comments first:They are intended to give you a framework for thinking about the essay as a whole; they also focus on the major issues, identifying the three or four areas which will benefit most from your continued work.
  • Read the margin comments next:They are most helpful when you read them by re-reading your essay at the same time (not just skimming my margin notes themselves). The margin comments are best seen as my conversation with you as I read your essay -- I’ll note questions that arise, points that are unclear, moments that work well, other ideas to consider, etc.
  • Revise before you editWhen you’re ready to revise, pay attention first to “big-picture” comments on argument, structure, evidence, and so forth, and only then to sentence-level comments (the reason being that some of those sentences may not even remain in the essay once you get to work on revising what the essay actually says).

Remember: my role as your reader is not to "fix" your essay (same goes for your other readers in the course). I will always focus on the three or four most significant issues I see, the ones that will make the biggest difference in helping you move towards a stronger essay. You, however, are still the writer of the essay: that means that in addition to absorbing what your readers say, you should also be re-reading your work and coming up with your own agenda for revision, and re-reading your revision to make sure it’s done what you want it to do – and that you haven’t created or uncovered new problems in your argument, questions of evidence, etc. The work we do in class and in workshop – discussing texts, exploring the Elements of the Essay, examining drafts and revisions – all constitute indirect feedback on your own draft.

And always feel free to ask me about comments you don’t understand.