Tool No. 2 : Support Each Other to Write Powerfully

Giving and Receiving  Feedback.

You sit alone and write an article. You not sure if  the message you want to put across has come through clearly , you not sure if you  have covered all the issues , you not sure if you left anything  important out.

How can you develop your article? Very simply to develop your article you have to read it to someone in your organisation or a friend and listen to their response. This is “feedback”.

But giving feedback and receiving feedback is always difficult and sometimes can discourage the writer. The person responding may have harsh things to say about your article. This can make you feel bad about your self and cause you to abandon your writing.

In the Community Monitors school see “ giving and receiving feedback “  as a skill to be learnt. We therefore practice it as a Tool we must learn to use.

These are some basic steps:

Step 1: The writer reads his/her article

Step 2. The Listener says what “words” or “phrases” used in the article are interesting.

Step 3. The listener then says what message s/he received from the article

Step 4. The listeners offers  says  could be left out ( if any) or what could be included.

Step 5. The writer listens carefully to the feedback and notes down any new ideas or thoughts emerging and considers the suggestions made.

These steps help the listener or reader to give positive feedback. It may lead to a discussion or even a debate on ideas. But  we must take care not to be aggressive in this discussion. We must simply leave the writer with suggestions for the writer to think about.
For more see “The Resource Book for Community Monitors” in the Resources page on this site