How to Give an Insightful Critique
After you receive a critique we encourage you rate it. Rating the critique allows you to tell the reviewer how helpful, constructive, detailed, insightful, and understandable the review was. Most members consistently rate their reviews very well in all areas except insightfulness. Why is it hard to give an insightful critique?
To be insightful you have to apprehend the true nature of the work you are critiquing. You have to shrewdly penetrate the surface of the writing to perceive its inner workings while paying attention to the details. You have to boldly tell the author what is wrong with their writing while remaining tactful and intelligent. You have to work.
Nothing is so good or poor that you cannot insightfully help the author. It’s not easy to do! If you wanted ‘easy’ you would be in front of the TV wasting your time instead of putting pen to paper and stretching your imagination.
If you take the time required to insightfully analyze someone else’s writing you will greatly enhance your own writing abilities. Are you ready to improve by critiquing others? If so upload your writing now and get started.
Jacob
Stumble it!
Tags: insightful critiques
June 28th, 2009 at 7:31 am
Fascinating post, and an important point. I’ve been critiquing professionally for seven or eight years now and I’m a writer too, so I know both sides of the fence. What I always try to do is to understand the effect the author is aiming for - which I’m able to do because I’m a writer too. What appears to be a mash of mismatched tones, for example, might be a brave attempt to show two worlds colliding - and quite an intelligent idea to attempt. From there, I tell them the effect they’re actually having and how they might get the effect they really want, if it’s possible. My clients usually say I’ve got it spot on - which is very rewarding!