Thinking about criticism...

Analizing the discussion we were having last class about peer review, I think that one of the reasons we have not been actively peer-reviewing other's texts is because we are too afraid to offend our classmates with any bad comment. To criticize, from my point of view, is really difficult; you have to take into account people's feelings and the way you are going to critique them without hurting or discouraging them. Considering this, you have to be a critical reader and part psychologist at the same time, being the latter is a harder work for most of us.

According to wikipipedia, -it might not be the best source- "Criticism is the judgement of the merits and faults of the work or actions of one individual by another (the critic). To criticise does not necessarily imply to find fault, but the word is often taken to mean the simple expression of prejudice or disapproval". I actually like this definition because it shows the two perspectives of the issue, which means that criticize is not only giving validation to somebody else's work, but also recognizing the weakness of it.

In this sense, I agree with those who think that saying always good things is going to help; it might be encouraging for people if they hear: "I'm really impressed by your text!", or "You did a great job!", or "Keep working like this, never change!", -or whatever other praising phrases we make up-. But at the same time, I strongly believe that pointing out the good things is not going to help at all to improve the bad or weak ones. For me, pointing out the faults, not only the merits, would be more productive to the improvement of our writing process or, more general, our learning process.

The problem I've faced by thinking this way, is that I focus too much my attention in the things that I don't like -even recognizing the good things- and I say what I really think about it without taking the psychologist position, being sometimes too honest and hard on them. With this strategy, I've found that people do not want to be told any unpleasant or disapproval comment and some of them take it as a personal attack. One of two things is happening: we are so reluctant to critique that we don't even know how to manage judgements or we don't know how to effectively address a critique to somebody. Either way, that's why most people -at least I do- prefer not to comment anything.

The hardest work for me , then, is to think about what people's feelings are; if they are too sensitive for my extreme -some would say brutal- honesty, or if they are just looking for a good comment, or even if they're going to hate me for not approving or agreeing with them. However, I don't consider feelings that much, on the contrary I do believe that the most productive critiques are those that hurt the most, because adults do not need to be cheered all the time.

This is only a reflection about why we should be more critical with the others if we really want to help them/us, it might be difficult to say some things or to accept some comments, but as long as we learn how to criticize and how to use the critiques to improve ourselves we are going to take the word "criticism" in a more possitive sense and we are going to be able to enjoy its advantages. I'm open to any kind of critique, so please do not hesitate to comment what do you think about it.