Understanding Feedback

Types of feedback

Feedback comes in different forms depending on the nature of your course. You might receive verbal feedback whilst on placement, or informal feedback from fellow students for a presentation. The most common form of feedback at university, however, is formal written feedback for assignments.

Formative and summative

There are two main forms of assessment at university: formative and summative.

Formative is a formal piece of independent work, but the mark doesn’t tend to count towards your final mark for the module. Formative assessments provide an opportunity to receive some feedback on your writing. This allows you to identify areas of your writing that need improvement for subsequent assignments. For this reason, formative assessments tend to be positioned early in a module, or midway through.

Unlike formative work, summative assessments contribute to your final mark for the module. The nature of the assignment can vary, but summative assignments are often similar to formative assignments. For instance, a summative assignment might require you to write about a similar topic covered in the formative assignment, or possibly even the same, but sometimes with a larger word count. Given that the mark for summative assignments counts towards your final grade, it’s important that you use the feedback for formative assessments proactively. This gives you the best chance when it comes to your summative assignments.

Receiving feedback

The way written feedback is presented can vary depending on the conventions of your school or department. Below is a link to a typical example of a feedback sheet where the marker provides their comments. Attached to this is a marking grid which should contextualise the marker’s comments and your overall mark. The marking grid is particularly important because this is what your marker uses to assess and grade your work. Both examples are from Health Sciences.

Feedback Sheet and Marking Grid

Interpreting feedback

As we’ve seen with the marking sheet, markers write a number of comments as a way of communicating what was good about the assignment and what needs improvement. As we’ve already established, being proactive with these comments – particularly the tips for improvement – is the only way to learn and improve. However, you need to be confident with interpreting the feedback provided. This comes with more experience, but take a look below at some of the comments that students commonly receive.

Critical analysis

Critical analysis

“Too descriptive”

“Need to be more critical”

One of the most important skills to master at university is critical thinking. Depending on the assignment, markers are often looking for more than mere description. Instead, they want you to engage with a range of evidence, evaluate strengths and weaknesses and consider the topic in depth. These comments above indicate a lack of depth, suggesting that the marker is looking for a greater level of engagement with the evidence and the topic. Description is a necessary means of providing context, but an overly descriptive piece of writing is going to prevent you from achieving the higher marks that you want.

Take a look at our Critical Thinking and Writing Critically guides for more on the basics of critical analysis.
Finding and using sources

“Read beyond the lectures”

“Need to back this up”

“Need more evidence”

One of the biggest challenges when it comes to university is getting your head around a diverse range of ideas. This requires patience, curiosity and plenty of reading. Academic sources, such as books and articles, are the building blocks of a typical academic assignment. They help you to explore and develop ideas and the more depth you can achieve in your assignments, the higher your marks are likely to be. These comments above are common signs of a lack of reading, or perhaps a misunderstanding of how sources are used to develop an assignment. Learning when to reference, and when to not, comes with experience, but you need to avoid vague and unsubstantiated comments and engage with a diverse body of literature that moves beyond the lectures.

Take a look at our Citing and Referencing and Introduction to Research Skills webpages.
Editing and proofreading

“Littered with grammatical errors and awkward phrasing”

“Don’t know what you mean here?”

It can be disheartening to lose marks on grammatical mistakes, typos and awkward phrasing. Markers are eagle-eyed and often pick up on these errors, resulting in comments like the ones above – or even the dreaded question mark. More often than not, confusion or incoherence can be avoided by thoroughly editing and proofreading your work. Granted it takes time and patience, but editing and proofreading your own work can help you to identify avoidable typos and errors. In addition, editing your work can focus your attention on the flow, structure and coherence of your writing.

Take a look at our Editing and Proofreading and Writing Layers guides for tips on how the edit and proofread your own work effectively.
Paraphrasing

“Over-reliant on quotes”

“Absence of your voice”

Whilst you’re expected to use lot of academic sources in your writing, you should avoid extensive quotations. This can vary depending on the expectations of your school and/or department and the conventions of your discipline, but over-relying on quotes can undermine your own voice and authority. Establishing your own voice is an important part of developing your own style as a writer. This doesn’t mean ignoring the views of other people, but incorporating them in a coherent way that forms a narrative. Regular quotes can be distracting and disruptive, forcing the reader to move between different styles of writing. Whilst maintaining the authors’ original views, paraphrasing allows you to maintain a consistent style that binds different voices together. Paraphrasing and summarising in your own words can also help to reduce wordiness by cutting out unnecessary content.

Take a look at our Paraphrasing guide for tips on how to paraphrase.
Argumentation

“Weak argumentation”

“Lack of argument”

As already established, critical analysis is an essential part of university and part of achieving this is argumentation. In an academic assignment, an argument is a position that you take. The main body of your assignment should work through a range of evidence that persuades your reader towards the cogency of your argument. It’s a good idea, where suitable, to also counter that argument with alternative evidence, but the argument stands at the centre of an assignment and provides a focal point for your reader. When markers refer to a ‘weak’ argument, then it might imply that the analysis, discussion and/or evidence is lacking in support of the argument. Alternatively, a complete absence of an argument can result in an aimless piece of writing – a sure way to disengage your reader.

Take a look at our Writing Critically and Thesis Statements guides for more on argumentation.

Now move to the next page Quiz – Getting Feedback

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