Use a Feedback Container to Achieve Quality, Not Consensus
I once worked on a project with a midsize company that involved more than 100 reviewers. They gave every possible variation of feedback.
Some ignored my questions about the premise and hunted for errant commas. Others waited until the fourteenth version to ask, “Should we even be writing this?” Some provided edits via email, via a separate Word document, via four Word documents from four people, or variously, suggested edits by making them, changing the text red, changing the text blue, adding a strikethrough, highlighting it, or all of the above. I counted dozens of unique methods.
If you asked everyone at this 1,000-person company, “What does ‘review’ mean to you?” you'd probably get 1,000 unique answers. Which is why I find it so delightfully curious that people here ask for reviews by simply asking for “a review.”
Experienced editors know that to ask “Who wants to review?” (first mistake) with the blank check “Please review” (second mistake) is to live a waking nightmare of unwanted critique.
That’s why Fenwick uses what we call containers for feedback. As an editor, you should enforce them.
Reviewers rarely know what’s being asked
The first step is to never presume anyone shares your definition of “a review.” I once told a CEO who kept laboriously proofreading our articles that he needn’t and he said, “Oh thank goodness.” You never know what people think you’re asking until you specify.
Constrain their reviews to only what is helpful, which is less work for your reviewer anyway. To do that, set a container for feedback. This is a short prompt that tells them what’s helpful and what isn’t.
A container for feedback often includes:
- What’s helpful
- What’s not helpful
- What’s next
- Rationale for all the above
For example, on that project with more than 100 reviewers, I created a feedback container. I added it to the top of every article so nobody could miss it. Every time I received unhelpful feedback, I edited the container. Below is how it now looks—fitted snugly to this company.
This article is meant to educate people with zero prior knowledge
- Please watch this two-minute walkthrough video. (Link.)
- Here’s what this article will look like once live. (Link.)
- Our workflow (current stage highlighted): ideas → style → grammar.
- At the ideas stage, we will agree on what ideas should be presented and in which order. Please ignore style and grammar, we'll handle those later.
- Important: Please use tracked changes. (No creating separate docs.)
- Important: This is based on a story Legal has already approved.
- Important: Please respond to all open comment bubbles.
I wouldn't have known how to write this list had I not received so many different types of feedback. The many reviewers helped sculpt this. It’s like editing jiu-jitsu. You redirect the company’s energies to only provide edits that are productive, and continuously clarify their feedback. By the end, we received very little off-topic input. People engaged with the proper concepts at the correct stages and when I received multiple Word documents, I knew that person hadn’t read the container.
You can create your own feedback containers. Start with the template below, adjust for your client, and over the project, adapt it to fit.
👋🏻 Hi there, thanks for your review. Important reminders that’ll save everyone's time:
- This document aims to __.
- This is for __ audience who __.
- Our workflow (current stage highlighted): ideas → style → grammar.
- At the ideas stage, we will agree on what ideas should be presented and in which order. Please ignore style and grammar. We'll handle those later.
- Please either comment or use the “Suggesting” feature. (No new docs.)
- Please respond to all open question bubbles.
- Please review by __ date.
- If we follow this process, reviews happen twice as fast.
Place this container at the top of each document and see what effect it has.
Whenever asked to review, reply, “What for?”
Just as you enforce containers when inviting reviewers into a document, you should require them from your writers. I’m convinced that a great deal of the misery of being edited is due to mis-set expectations at the review. The writer says “Please review” and people who are not credible commentators pile in, and each applies a personal rubric that nobody knew to prepare for.
Sometimes the writer tells you, “This is ready” and you power through an extensive Type 2 style edit before realizing they wanted feedback on the idea. They had written it as a stream of consciousness and not intended the language to be final. Or, you give Type 1 ideas-only feedback and it ends up they can’t change those flabby quotes because they must publish them verbatim.
Avoid all this by setting and demanding containers for feedback. And when your writers don’t offer one, reply, “What would you like me to review for? What would/wouldn’t be helpful, and why?”
