EME 7938 & 7939

SUGGESTED GROUND RULES FOR

DISCUSSION OF DRAFT DOCUMENTS

1) What you have written or thought between the time that you emailed your paper and the time that we discuss it doesn’t matter. None of your reviewers read any of that.

2) What you have in your mind that you didn’t write down in your paper doesn’t matter. None of your reviewers can read any of that.

3) Don’t debate, justify, or defend anything that you did or didn’t write or do that any one of your reviewers says that you should or shouldn’t have written or done. That is almost always a complete waste of your time. You will rarely learn anything from that process in comparison to the value of the things that you will learn if you devote your time (the precious few minutes allocated to discussion of your work) to listening to what your reviewers have to say.

a. You don’t have to make any changes or do anything that anybody says, including the professor. They might all be wrong. It’s your decision how to use the input that you get.

b. Any questions that you ask during the discussion should be devoted to clarification -- make sure that you understand the criticism that you are offered.

c. Don’t do anything to discourage a reviewer from offering a criticism. You can always discard bad criticism that you receive, but you can’t get good criticism that wasn’t offered.

4) Don’t approach criticism of your work negatively. Approach criticism of your work as a positive opportunity to improve it. Assume that each of your reviewers has spent time and energy trying to come up with the best possible advice for you – just as you have done for each of them. Except for this course, you normally can’t buy that kind of advice at any price.