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Of Critiques and Using Suggestions for Editing

Here’s part two of the three-part critique introduction I’m working on!
 
 
So you’ve submitted a poem, making sure to select some Review Requests and perhaps even timidly clicked “I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back”, you’ve gotten a few comments with some great feedback. What now? 
 
Well, I’m going to assume that you consider your poetry to be a draft when you submit it to an online workshop community like Neopoet. If that’s the case, you’re going to want to reread your poem and revise it. If you’re fresh out of ideas for adjustments, you can look to the comments you’ve received. A fresh pair of eyes reading your poem can go a long way towards polishing a piece to full luster. Read over the thoughts you’ve been given and try out the suggestions in your poem. A good first step in this stage of revision is to read your poem aloud incorporating the suggested adjustments. Compare your draft with the altered version and see which sounds better. Feel free to pick and choose from all the offered ideas until you’re happy with the result. If the suggestions you’ve been given just aren’t your cup of tea, don’t “force” yourself to use them, but don’t give up either. Think about what the commenters were trying to help you accomplish with their suggestions. Decide (or ask!) what was lacking in your poem and see if you can come up with your own solutions. Not every suggestion you’ll be given will be precisely what you want or what you think the poem needs, but they can still help you pin-point trouble spots in your poem. 
 
So you’ve got revision one on your screen. You can chose to immediately revise the poem on Neopoet or you can wait and approach the poem with fresh eyes later (this way may help you if you’re a little overwhelmed with the suggestions you were given). It’s totally up to you. When you do revise the Neopoet submission you’ll hopefully get some followup comments letting you know if your improvements are working. 
 
A recap:
-Reread and read aloud! 
-Try incorporating suggestions into your poem.
-Take or leave suggestions as you see fit.
-If you aren’t feeling the suggestions you get, figure out what the suggestions were telling you (what trouble spots were they pointing to?)
 
Not mentioned above but now that I think of it: keep a version of each of your drafts so you can compare (more on how to use the Revisions tab for Neopoet to make comparisons later)
 
 

Comments

Jess has already made the explanation of the Revisions tab, here: https://www.neopoet.com/node/2658

Kelsey

Critique, don't comment.

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author comment

good inputs here by you and via the link by Jess about how to use the revision tab.

perhaps it also needs to be mentioned that the suggestions and/or offerings made by others need to be acknowledged as a a good etiquette.

It is good to see that you have now taken off your glasses for a more friendly teacher look.
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raj (sublime_ocean)

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