*or what to do with a broken soul. This one’s for you!
This is a common problem for academics. Feedback in all its forms, from colleagues, from friends and family, from anonymous reviewers and editors, and of course, Reviewer 2, can be brutal. Academics can be fragile when it comes to receiving critique of their writing. Of course, we merrily criticise students’ work all the time and when they are broken, we are like: ‘get on with it’!
It is always so much worse when it happens to us. Of course.
We need feedback
Whilst this might seem a tad obvious, it is worth breaking this down a little. Feedback is provided when work is voluntarily handed over to be judged. When you press submit, you are inviting a critique of your work; this is what pushes your ideas and your communication of those ideas forward. We can’t do this alone and in a vacuum: we must have the input of others. Academia is a profession where you never do anything at all without it being criticised, be it teaching, research or administration. It is why a lot of people find solace in meetings - it is about the one place where criticism of your performance takes a break (mostly).
This never ending onslaught of criticism can grind you down, for sure. Hence, why academics are so prickly about their writing.
Recognising the difference between feedback and other stuff
Genuine feedback seeks to engage with your ideas. It seeks to see things from your point of view, and endeavours to push you to do better by suggesting where you might improve the text or the ideas so they can shine. When you see this kind of feedback, grab it, embrace it, even when you feel your hackles rise. This is just your ego talking, and it is not helpful.
Feedback might not, though, be dressed as gushing praise, and might initially make you feel a bit dense and demoralised. In my experience even the most egregious attacks on our intelligence, dressed up as feedback, contains within it in a kernel of truth. A nugget. A snippet of something that might be useful if only we could see it through our tears. Even the ‘newspaper editorial’ guy had some useful stuff to say before he slipped sidelong into his own personality vacuum.
Anyway, as we all know, there are many axes to grind in academia and occasionally someone decides to grind their axe on you. On your very writer’s soul. It is not remotely fair. I know this.
What about when you get rejected?
There is no two ways about it: this sucks. Not even being given a chance to remedy the situation is quite annoying. Worse if it gets rejected after major revisions (this should not happen as often as it does, and it is often down to totally new reviewers). Look, sometimes we just are not in the right knitting circles for that journal. Sometimes they just didn’t get it; it is a solid paper for the right audience. We must pick ourselves up and resubmit somewhere else the very next day. Don’t sit on it, don’t agonise, just change the style and re-submit. Publishing is a numbers game these days, and the key is to not give up. So what if it takes 10 submissions, just keep batting that thing back till it sticks.
Learn something
We all like to learn. It is why we became academics. Feedback is an opportunity to learn and we should grab it. Of course, it might sting for a few days, and by all means have a sulk. Call them names. Put it in the drawer for a day (or two, not more). But then take it back out with clear eyes, and find that kernel of helpful advice within it. It won’t all be helpful. Maybe not even most of it. But some of it will be helpful. Make a list in a table of the comments, rephrased in your words, and then slowly and surely work your way down the list in order to improve your piece.
You may not think it improves your piece, and this is just somebody’s hobby horse that you have to ride to get it published. So be it. Don’t get precious; this is how the journal article game is played. Reviewers want to be acknowledged and heard, so absolutely address every (meaningful comment) using a table. Any defamatory language will naturally not have made it into your table. Don’t sweat it. Once it is not in your table, it is like it never existed in the first place. Then tabula rasa. Move on.