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.

In our interview with the Writing Center’s Associate Director Melanie Brown last year, Dr. Brown proposed a great suggestion to track and organize the feedback you receive on your writing. Kayla also discussed the importance of documenting your writing concerns and errors in her post on applying feedback throughout a draft. Keeping a running list of feedback notes, areas of improvement, areas of strength, and plans for future writing can help you remember the valuable feedback you get from faculty, peers, and the Writing Center and put it to good use.

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.

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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