How to Give and Receive Criticism

Giving criticism is a lot easier than getting criticism. Criticism helps the aspiring writer and not to make them feel worthless for what they had written.

I once had a teacher who had a rule of thumb to always think of at least three things you liked about the writers work before you would criticize them. I found that this  works when you are looking over someone else's work. It is easy to find flaws in something but when you try to find all the good in it and not just the bad then you will be amazed at what all the writer can teach you.

I have always heard you learn from your mistakes but you also can learn from the mistakes of others. I try to read other peoples articles as much as possible so I can see different writers that exist.

Different people have different writing techniques and just because their style differs from yours, doesn't make them a bad writer.

You should always be honest about the article but, you should avoid criticizing the writer themselves. Remember that you are not there to have a cut down contest but instead to help the writer and to also help yourself. Make sure you are not criticizing their work just because of a bad run in with them. If you think you might do this then you should not even read it and stay away from their work. The golden rule applies here.

There is no such thing as a perfect writer only writer's in learning. Everyone should take it on themselves to learn something everyday. Einstein didn't become famous overnight, he became famous after experimenting and putting things to work.

When you are criticizing someone else's work you should try to avoid telling them that their work should have been written a certain way, instead try to put your words down so it seems as though you are telling them that this might help and not telling them that they should do something.

When you use the words, should or you, at the beginning of a sentence, then it seems like you are picking on them and this is not what your intentions should be. Try expressing your feelings by using words such as confused, happy, sad, amazed and such. When you do this the writer will be able to see that they got their point out or maybe they should have done something different to it to make you feel the way that they were trying to focus on.

Don't badly criticize someones work just because you didn't like what they had to say. This is the wrong reason to criticize. You should be a critic to their work alone and not over their opinion or yours. The writer may have a different point of you from yours but this does not make them a bad writer. I have seen a lot of articles that were badly criticize for all the wrong reasons.

Now, with that said you may be wondering how to take criticism. Take time to read over each criticism and remember that criticism is not meant to make you feel bad about what you wrote but instead it is there to help you learn.

Don't get mad about what someone has to say. This person is only expressing their opinion on your work to help you realize what could have been done better and to help you improve your work.

If this person wrote something about your grammar or the misspelling of words they are only doing this to remind you to check your spelling next time.

Try to understand exactly what the criticizers point of view is before getting mad. If they were trying to help you then you should always thank them for this instead of becoming angry.

I understand that there are a lot of critics out there who will do whatever it takes to make your articles seem less attractive but, that is why we all have a delete button. You should not delete items or comments that are meant to help you but should write a comment with it explaining why you feel the way that you do.

Criticism is hard to take but if you learn to use it in a good way then you can take your writing to an entirely different level.