Questions on Papers

I think that having both the comments in the margins and the comments at the bottom of a paper is the best way to receive feed back. You can see that throughout the paper in the margins the professor is able to add helpful hints to specific areas of the paper. They can question a specific decision that you made in your paper. This is helpful because you would not know what they were referring to specifically if they had waited until the end of the paper to say that. In addition to the comments in the margins I feel that having the little wrap up or summary of the professor's overall opinion of your paper is also important. Seeing just comments on the side could be intimidating and possibly make you think that what you wrote is not good when in reality the professor was simply giving you some suggestions or helpful hints. It's encouraging to know exactly what the professor thinks of your paper especially when it is on a rough draft because then you can tell if you are heading in the right direction.