Debriefing a study performance

Situation

You have written and submitted your first term paper, Now, you would like to know what your lecturer thinks of your work; therefore you go to one of their office hours and ask her/him for feedback.

Hintergrundinformation

Term papers serve as preparation for the final paper. Therefore, it is very important to carefully analyze the potential for improvement as well as possible recommendations for future work after the assessment by the lecturer. The grade alone does not provide you with sufficient information that would show what and in what way you could improve this term paper and what you need to pay attention to when writing the next paper. Therefore, after the assessment, you should clarify what possibilities there are for improvement and what mistakes – of content and/or form – should be avoided in the future. Sometimes you may even be given the opportunity to revise the paper and submit it a second time. However, this is not a rule and you should not assume that this is possible without further ado.

Tip

You should prepare this situation well by email. You must bear in mind that lecturers often have to deal with the work of many students at the same time in a tightly limited period of time and are therefore not able to spontaneously remember and comment on every piece of work. Therefore, it is important to email your lecturer to ask if he/she has already had the opportunity to read your work and to ask for an appointment to debrief the work. Be sure to use a polite tone in your request – this will increase the chances of an accommodating response. If there is an opportunity for you to see the work you have read, make use of it, as the lecturer's revision notes can be very helpful to you.