My manager and I were talking the other day about how people feel so strongly about their writing, even when they have no interest in writing as a profession or hobby. People can get defensive when their writing is critiqued, though the writing under scrutiny may be no more than an email or memo.

I encountered this frequently when I was a writing tutor at Utah State University. Some people who came in for help put up a resistance to suggestions. That sounds contradictory, but many students visited the Writing Center because a certain number of visits were required for the freshman- and sophomore-level composition classes. Even some of those who came just for credit didn’t like qualified peers giving ideas on ways their essays could improve.

Why is it that even people who couldn’t care less about English class get defensive about their writing?

The Writer’s Mental Text

I think it has to do with the fact that when you’re writing, you’re putting your thoughts, perceptions, and beliefs on paper. Even without being able to articulate it this way, a writer probably considers criticism of his writing to be a criticism of his view of the world and the way his mind works. That criticism can even be viewed as an attack, which makes the shields come up. To an editor, an author’s defensiveness is a high hurdle—nearly too high to jump over and just high enough to hit her head on the crossbar if she tries to walk under it. Limbo, anyone?

Personally, I tried to develop a thick skin during my professional and technical writing program. I think I still flinched sometimes when it came to a peer critique or a one-on-one with the professor. However, just as I was focused on the text on the page itself in a tutoring session, professorial feedback was not calculated to attack or belittle my ideas. It was designed to improve the way I communicated my ideas, and that’s something else altogether.

The pizza chef could have made a great pizza, but if the delivery boy drives all over town before bringing it to your door stone cold, or his truck breaks down halfway through the trip, the chef’s work doesn’t count for much.

Point That Finger Somewhere Else

If editing or critiquing someone’s writing, it’s important to make yourself out as a friend. Refer to “this wording” and “this description,” such as in a remark like “This introduction could be clearer about the purpose of the memo,” as opposed to “You need to put more information in your introduction.” Making a culprit out of the writing itself is less threatening than reinforcing the writer’s subconscious conviction that she and her writing are one and the same. “You” is the same as finger-pointing. The writer has to see the editor as an ally. Even better, focus on yourself as a reader. “When I read this, I get the idea that…”

After all, what’s an editor for but to help the writer look good? And that’s not to say that the writer wasn’t good-looking to start with. But a little polish on the shoes never hurt anyone.

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