Two of the dimensions along which I can get feedback are:
Content
Efficacy
Content feedback is stuff like pointing out facts I got wrong, or missed, or extending an argument in a surprising direction, or pointing out supporting facts, etc.
Efficacy feedback is when a comment shows that part of my post was effective or ineffective at communicating. Often when people misunderstand my post, it’s pretty clear to me what part they misunderstood. Learning that something was misunderstood helps me see which sorts of things might need to be better explained. Sometimes people are also kind enough to simply tell me that a part was unclear or seemed unsupported.
But when the efficacy feedback I get is mainly critical, it nudges me towards some combination of general long-windedness (since I lower my estimate of how clear all the parts are), and writing less often (since the EV of writing is lower). Getting praise for the parts that were effective is extremely helpful in counteracting this bias, and is just as good at causing me to reallocate my efforts from less to more effective types of writing.
This particular item of praise was especially helpful because part of what you’re praising—part of what made this piece effective for you—was that I didn’t feel the need to tediously defend something that I thought was clearly true.
Huh! I hadn’t noticed that before. I will try to give people more feedback on the very particular parts of their writing that were useful to me.
Maybe at some point I should put this in a semi-prominent post somewhere on the site called “some types of feedback that are helpful for writers”. My guess is that many folks aren’t aware of this, and that there’s a bunch of things opaque to the majority of folks who aren’t writers that could be put into such a post.
Two of the dimensions along which I can get feedback are:
Content
Efficacy
Content feedback is stuff like pointing out facts I got wrong, or missed, or extending an argument in a surprising direction, or pointing out supporting facts, etc.
Efficacy feedback is when a comment shows that part of my post was effective or ineffective at communicating. Often when people misunderstand my post, it’s pretty clear to me what part they misunderstood. Learning that something was misunderstood helps me see which sorts of things might need to be better explained. Sometimes people are also kind enough to simply tell me that a part was unclear or seemed unsupported.
But when the efficacy feedback I get is mainly critical, it nudges me towards some combination of general long-windedness (since I lower my estimate of how clear all the parts are), and writing less often (since the EV of writing is lower). Getting praise for the parts that were effective is extremely helpful in counteracting this bias, and is just as good at causing me to reallocate my efforts from less to more effective types of writing.
This particular item of praise was especially helpful because part of what you’re praising—part of what made this piece effective for you—was that I didn’t feel the need to tediously defend something that I thought was clearly true.
Huh! I hadn’t noticed that before. I will try to give people more feedback on the very particular parts of their writing that were useful to me.
Maybe at some point I should put this in a semi-prominent post somewhere on the site called “some types of feedback that are helpful for writers”. My guess is that many folks aren’t aware of this, and that there’s a bunch of things opaque to the majority of folks who aren’t writers that could be put into such a post.