Receiving Criticism
This morning, I asked a post-doc in the lab to look over the poster I've been working on this week. I made this request because I consider this guy smart, and I knew that printing a poster without having a second pair of (fresh) eyes look it over is a mistake.
15 minutes later, he came over with the mini-poster I had given him and it was covered in markings. The first things out of his mouth were, "This was just a rough draft, right?" and "This really needs to be sharpened up." We proceeded to walk through his critique point by point until we reached the end.
I have to admit that I was put off by his initial comments and it really did make it hard to be open-minded to his other comments. I'll have to remember to not take the same approach when offering my thoughts about other people's work to them.
I was also reminded that getting other people's comments/criticisms is a tricky game. If you do everything they suggest, then it becomes their work more than your own. However, if you don't do anything they say then you've wasted their time and your own time. The solution appears to be that you have to carefully weigh their suggestions and admit it when you're wrong and their right. Since some things come down to a matter of opinion, you can choose to leave it your way so don't feel like you're losing ownership of your work.
Later this afternoon, I'll give my advisor a copy of the mini-poster when he gets back into town. I'm curious to see how he sees things, and if his comments are consistent with the earlier ones then I'll have to take them even more seriously. That's the other key to getting comments on something, the more the better. If everyone points out a problem then you can be pretty sure that you're wrong and they're right. You wouldn't think that democracy would have power in the editing process, but it really does.
15 minutes later, he came over with the mini-poster I had given him and it was covered in markings. The first things out of his mouth were, "This was just a rough draft, right?" and "This really needs to be sharpened up." We proceeded to walk through his critique point by point until we reached the end.
I have to admit that I was put off by his initial comments and it really did make it hard to be open-minded to his other comments. I'll have to remember to not take the same approach when offering my thoughts about other people's work to them.
I was also reminded that getting other people's comments/criticisms is a tricky game. If you do everything they suggest, then it becomes their work more than your own. However, if you don't do anything they say then you've wasted their time and your own time. The solution appears to be that you have to carefully weigh their suggestions and admit it when you're wrong and their right. Since some things come down to a matter of opinion, you can choose to leave it your way so don't feel like you're losing ownership of your work.
Later this afternoon, I'll give my advisor a copy of the mini-poster when he gets back into town. I'm curious to see how he sees things, and if his comments are consistent with the earlier ones then I'll have to take them even more seriously. That's the other key to getting comments on something, the more the better. If everyone points out a problem then you can be pretty sure that you're wrong and they're right. You wouldn't think that democracy would have power in the editing process, but it really does.
posted by pro_blogger at 1:13 PM
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