Title: Why I provide in-depth feedback on your writing
Course: CJ601-01:Seminar in the Administration of Criminal Justice

Hi everyone,

In class, I mentioned that a big part of the writing process is re-writing (or editing).

I didn't know this when I started grad school. For the longest time, I had been told or gotten signals that I was a good writer -- I got A's on all my papers, and my undergraduate, Masters, and early PhD advisors told me that my writing was great and clear. However, I noticed that, while I "felt" great about my writing, my work kept getting rejected from academic journals or conferences.

So... I reached out to my research internship advisor out at Notre Dame. I knew he was an honest person who would give me a straightforward and honest critique -- with minimal sugar-coating. When I asked him for advice, he quickly said yes, but warned me that his feedback was often quite blunt. I was prepared.

What I received, maybe ~30 minutes later, was the most thorough feedback I'd ever gotten. I showed the comments and block of feedback to my friend... and he asked why I wasn't crying over these comments. I said "because I finally got the feedback I needed to get better" as both a writer and scholar.

This is what I bring with me, to you. I want to help you improve your academic/scholarly writing... but you can't do that without attention or direct feedback. As such, I'll be looking closely at each student's draft submission to provide targeted feedback and edits so that you feel better about the final product. The comments may be direct (or even blunt sometimes), but I want you to know that my comments are directed at the writing -- not you. You will continue to grow as a writer, and my focus is on helping you improve the writing side. This means your writing is not a reflection of you... therefore, my comments are not directed at you, whatsoever.

Below, I've linked the document with his comments, so you get an idea of what he did for me, but also an idea of the kind of attention your work will get from me. The cool news is that, ultimately, this paper turned into two published papers.

Burrel's DRAFT Second-Year Paper (UCI MA Thesis) w/ Comments

I look forward to helping everyone this semester. I hope you see this process as helpful toward your end goals.

-B