criticism, constructive or otherwise

[mamajoan]

The hot topic of the moment seems to be negative feedback vs. positive feedback vs. constructive criticism.

I always thought of constructive criticism as a term with two mutually exclusive meanings. One is the sarcastic PC-mocking term, where you don't want to say "insults." As in, "That idiot in marketing has some stupid new slogan ideas. Let's call a meeting so we can offer him 'constructive criticism.'" The other meaning is more literally what the words mean -- critique intended to help improve the work and/or the writer by offering suggestions and examples.

Personally I never thought of CC as another term for negative feedback, which is how thamiris seems to define it. I think of it as a neutral term referring to any feedback whose aim is to improve the work. Illustrative examples:

1. "I liked your story."
2. "I hated your story."
3. "I thought your characterization of Xander was good."
4. "I thought your characterization of Xander sucked."
5. "I thought it was out of character for Xander to smack Buffy upside the head."
6. "I thought it was in character for Buffy to smack Xander upside the head."

#1 and #3 are positive feedback (but unhelpful, hence not constructive). #2 and #4 are negative feedback (but ditto, unhelpful). And I'd argue that #5 and #6 are constructive criticism. #5 is negative, in a sense, but its tone is helpful rather than insulting. Similarly #6 is positive, in a sense, and it is also helpful. Telling an author what she did right is easily as important as telling her what she did wrong.

It's true that with the fragile authorial ego to contend with, it's hard to tread the line between being constructive and just plain criticizing. Hard, but not impossible. Something for us all to strive toward.

Comments

[thamiris.livejournal.com]

Personally I never thought of CC as another term for negative feedback, which is how thamiris seems to define it.

Actually, that's not how I define it; my point is that's how it's often defined, with negative comments viewed as inherently more worthy than positive ones. Now, I'm not against suggestions for improvement; I'm just asking that 1) we think about what we're trying to accomplish when we write feedback and 2) that we take this into account and write better feedback, whatever the content of that feedback may be.

Just for the record. ;-)

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Ouch! Sorry!!!! I plead distraction at work and clearly not reading you with the attention to detail that you deserve. (I did say "seems to" so I have a little cushion to my guilt.) :)

We're pretty much in agreement, then. Although I also don't like to discourage people from writing a much simpler "I liked it" feedback. But I gotta run, so maybe I'll type more on that topic later.