Summary

The article outlines five techniques for self-editing and obtaining feedback as a writer, including role-playing as an editor, expanding and condensing text, explaining content to an inanimate object, using AI tools for grammar checks, and selectively soliciting feedback from friends.

Abstract

The article "How To Give Yourself Feedback As a Writer" presents a guide for writers seeking to self-edit and improve their work without relying solely on external feedback. It acknowledges the difficulty of obtaining constructive criticism and suggests five techniques to refine one's writing. The first technique, inspired by French philosopher Michel Onfray, involves switching roles from author to editor by revising text in a different color or format. The second, named after Christian Bale, recommends expanding and contracting the text to enhance clarity and conciseness. The "rubber duck" method, borrowed from software developers, suggests explaining the content out loud to gain new perspectives and identify flaws. The article also endorses AI tools like Grammarly for basic proofreading, emphasizing their ease of use and importance in the writing process. Lastly, it advises on how to effectively request feedback from friends by being selective and providing value in the exchange.

Opinions

The author believes that self-editing is a crucial skill for writers, especially when external feedback is hard to come by.
Printing out text and editing by hand is suggested as a method to change the writer's perspective from creator to critic.
Expanding and condensing text is seen as a way to both deepen arguments and eliminate unnecessary details.
Explaining content to an inanimate object, like a rubber duck, is considered an effective technique to self-edit and clarify one's thoughts.
AI tools such as Grammarly are highly recommended for their ability to catch basic mistakes and improve the overall quality of writing.
When seeking feedback from friends, the author emphasizes the importance of not overburdening them and ensuring that the content is of interest to the friend being asked.

How To Give Yourself Feedback As a Writer

5 techniques ranging from the “Christian Bale” to the “Rubber Duck”

My grandpa telling me how good is my writing by **Andrea Piacquadio** from **Pexels**

The last time I asked my partner for feedback on my writing, he declined. He said he didn’t know much about writing and wouldn’t be able to make objective and effective comments on my pieces. There’s some truth in this answer, of course. But I think it’s also a way to avoid potentially tense discussion.

Finding colleagues or mentors to get constructive and actionable feedback is fiendishly difficult. It takes time to build a relationship where the parties trust each other enough to offer more than polite praise. And to get this effective feedback regularly is even more arduous.

As venture capitalists would say, how to bootstrap your feedback then? In other words, how to get feedback with your own and limited resources?

Be your own editor: when Christian Bale and a French philosopher play with a rubber duck

I use three techniques to do so. Usually, I choose one of them as I don’t have the strength to use all three for each article.

The French philosopher

Michel Onfray is a prolific French philosopher. He mostly handwrites his texts. Once he writes a draft, he takes a pen with another color and starts editing. He writes comments and changes in this new color. It makes it easier for him to see the changes, but above all, it’s a way to change his mindset from the author to the editor.

If you write like me on a computer, you can still use this technique. I find the best way is to print your text and handwrite the changes in a different color, of course.

The Christian Bale

That’s because this actor is known for his extreme body transformations.

This technique is the most tedious (for me) but also the most effective.

When your text is finished (or rather, finished for the first time), try to increase the word count by 5 to 10%. And try to decrease the word count by 5 to 10%. In both cases, start from the “finished” text.

Trying to increase the word count will lead you to places where your arguments need clarification or additional examples. It can also push you to find new ideas.

On the contrary, trying to decrease it will lead you to the parts that are a bit boring, too long, or too detailed. It can also show you where the weak points of your text are. Indeed, I find I’m more likely to delete an argument that is a bit feeble.

The rubber duck

I got this technique from software developers. Some of them use the so-called “rubber duck debugging method”. When you have bugs in your program, you pretend to explain your code (line by line) to a rubber duck.

Explaining things out loud kind of forces you to take a different perspective, helping, in this case, to find bugs. In general, trying to explain something is an excellent way to check your understanding.

Reading my text out loud draws my attention to the breaks in the rhythm. Sentences that are too long leave me out of breath. Paragraphs making a weak argument leave a bitter taste on the tongue. Not to mention that writing is a very solitary exercise; it’s nice to hear someone’s voice from time to time!

It’s not really about feedback, but this technique is fun to practice. Before writing everything in detail, I sometimes take the elevator with my rubber duck and explain what my text is about.

This elevator pitch helps me to organize the main ideas for the article. The result can as well be used for SEO description purposes.

When intelligence isn’t enough, use an artificial one

Grammarly and other applications help to remove obvious mistakes from your texts. There are no reasons not to use them. Even the free versions are useful.

They’re now so easy to use that they became mandatory. Most of the submission guidelines for online publications insist on receiving a clean copy and often encourage you to use Grammarly or another application of your choice. A few of them don’t mention it, but that’s only because they assume it’s obvious.

I use Grammarly in its free version and never submit an article with a score lower than 99. This means my text is free of typos and other classic mistakes. Interestingly enough, it’s possible to get a score of 100 (“Great job!”) by using the premium suggestions.

The free version lists the premium suggestions but doesn’t tell you exactly where to find them (nor how to correct them in detail). However, you can:

Slice your text into shorter parts, and check each of them separately. It can help narrow the search for mistakes.
Even if the suggestion isn’t precisely flagged, Grammarly still underlines the place in the text for some of them. In particular, mistakes or suggestions linked to punctuation.

It’s quite impossible to bring the premium suggestions’ count to zero, but you can reduce it enough to get the “great job!” mark.

Use the email-a-friend lifeline (wisely!)

When discussing with friends my writing for the first time, I systematically send them a link to my profile(s). I always tell them I would be happy to know their opinion. So far, I didn’t get any valuable feedback this way.

It’s partially linked to the obstacle of creating a profile. On all the platforms I use, you need to be a registered user to like, clap or comment. And as my friends aren’t usually members of the platform where I’m publishing, most of them don’t bother registering and can’t give feedback in this manner.

From my experience, A better way is to send a draft by email.

Pay attention to these two things:

Don’t spam. To put it differently, don’t ask for feedback too often. A good way to work around this one is to go from one friend to another. And back to the first one when the circle is complete.
Try to send something of value to them. People are much more likely to answer something useful if they are interested in or familiar with the topic.

Finally, when exchanging with friends, framing your feedback request can boost its effectiveness. Instead of asking what’s their thinking, ask for their opinion on a specific point or what they would add. For me, it’s working better. I think it’s because it somehow becomes more personal. It forces them to get involved.

Final Words

They say feedback is a gift. And I think it’s the best one I could receive for Christmas this year.

So, thanks in advance for your feedback!

(If it’s a tough one, please consider leaving it as a private note!)