Suppose you are a postgraduate or doctoral research student who has already received feedback on at least one piece of written work. See if you can identify a piece of your draft or completed written work where you have received a significant amount of feedback from your tutor or supervisor. See how many explicit criteria you can identify in the feedback they have given you. Look for lessons you can learn for improving your future written work from both:

·    where you have met particular criteria well so it may be worth repeating what you did

·    where you have not met particular well so it may be worth avoiding what you did and doing something different

Try filling in this table as far as you can. It offers a way of helping you to build-up your personal ‘prompt list’ of what to do again and what to avoid doing in your future written work.

Indicate at the top which piece of work you are referring to. Then go through the feedback you received, identifying each criterion that your tutor or supervisor has made explicit in the feedback: 

1. In the first column, enter each explicit criterion (up to five in total) where the feedback indicates you met the criterion well.
2. In the second column, write how you will attempt to continue meeting this criterion in your future writing for assessment.
3. In the third column, enter each explicit criterion (up to five in total) where the feedback indicates that you need to improve what you did.
4. In the fourth column, write down how you will attempt to improve your future writing for assessment by meeting this criterion more fully.

When you come to do your next piece of written work for assessment, you could refer to your completed table as a prompt to remind you what to make sure you do, and what to try and avoid doing.

You could do a similar exercise for the next piece of draft or final written work for assessment during your academic studies where you receive substantial feedback, to help you build up your expertise as an academic writer.