Feedback Journals Can Help Develop an Effective Writing Practice
Develop Your Own Effective Writing Practice: Print out these journals or keep them in a handy location on your computer. Add to and consult them as you write and as you review feedback. Then, check back in with us! We’d love to know what you think of these journals, if they're helping you in your writing practice, and how they might be improved.
APA Journal – MS Word Version
APA Journal – PDF version
Grammar Journal – MS Word version
Grammar Journal – PDF version with examples
Writing Feedback Journal – MS Word version
Writing Feedback Journal – PDF version
As a sentimental person (or as a borderline hoarder, as my husband would say), I've kept many of the papers I wrote in college. Usually they sit in the back of a closet gathering dust, but I come across them every so often and read through them again. This weekend, as I pulled out my old papers, I noticed something interesting I hadn't seen before: several papers written for different classes throughout one semester contained similar comments from my professors. I clearly hadn't been using their comments to improve my work in my other courses.
It's not that I didn't care or didn't try to strengthen my writing. On the contrary--I loved writing, and I took each comment and correction to heart. I also knew writing would play a major role in my future career, so I took greater pains than the average student to learn from my writing experiences. However, I didn't have any systematic method for keeping track of the feedback I received so that I could reflect on it and apply it to my other papers.
To help you get started, we've created APA, grammar, and writing feedback journals free for you to download and use in your own writing practice. Click the links at the top of this post to get started!
One of our most popular episodes of the WriteCast podcast addresses the topic of starting and sticking to a writing practice. By "writing practice," we mean not only the act of writing, but also prewriting, revising, reflecting on your writing, evaluating your process, and growing as a writer.
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Anne Shiell is the Manager of Writing Instructional Services at the Walden Writing Center. Anne also produces WriteCast, the Writing Center's podcast.
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Hi Anne
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your sharing your posts. Just the other day, I said to myself that I would need to separate my ongoing suggestions list for APA, grammarly, and other comments versus keeping them in one document along with my thoughts or next steps for research.
Thanks for the worthwhile read.
Jonica Rowland, MBA
Thanks for reading, Jonica, and for your comment! I hope you find the journals helpful. If you start using them, let us know how it goes!
DeleteAnne
Thank you for sharing! This is an excellent idea. Fortunately, I am at the beginning of my APA writing career. I have printed these journals and plan on using them. I love writing and have been for years. However, I realize writing for entertainment and writing for research are completely different. Therefore, I am having to rethink my entire writing concept. I hope these journals will prove to be a beneficial aid to improve my APA writing. Thanks again!
ReplyDeleteSo glad you found this post helpful!
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