GenZedong

My Marx paper must have been decent because my final grade of the class was in the A’s. Unfortunately I am not the type to look at feedback very much because, for some reason, it makes me anxious and self conscious. I am aware that feedback is there to help me improve and that I should definitely look at them but I just don’t, with this upcoming semester and future ones I will look at the feedback just so I can gain a tolerance.

Huh that be like me fr

Good to hear that your prof is supportive. That's not the case everywhere.

Depends where you do a PhD. In the US, things can be more structured with compulsory courses than elsewhere. Otherwise, you may get the opportunity to enrol on a methods-type courses, etc. It may depend on what was covered on your Masters. It may also be a funding requirement, usually as part of a 1+3 deal, where the first year is something like an MSc or MA in methods and research. Wherever you are, your school/department/faculty will likely invite you to bespoke training sessions run by the academic staff. You'll probably have to show engagement with CPD to 'upgrade' and/or complete, depending on the institution, for which you can attend a mixture of the above, plus conference attendance.

You'd always have your PhD research to blog about. You'll want to think carefully about that. Some people make a kind of research repository out of a blog. Given how much you write online, you could get some benefit from that (it can look good as a kind of publication if it's consistent enough). That might need to be attributed to your real name (to include it on your CV/public profile), for which you may not want to associate it to Lemmygrad or your SpaceDogs account. If it's just for you and us, you can keep doing what you're doing, taking care not to say too much about your project – you'll be the only one answering your question, so it would be easier to dox yourself.

I wonder if there's a way to re-frame what feedback is and how to approach it. Would be good to start looking at it in detail. Not all feedback is good but good feedback could really help. You might be making the same mistake between papers, which could be easily addressed and lift your grade.

There's maybe a trick in knowing that just because someone writing feedback says XYZ, doesn't mean they're right. It gets easier to think, 'you're confident in telling me why I'm wrong but luckily I disagree'. At the same time, nothing is ever finished. There will always be room to find something to improve; and every person has their own perspective, so there will always be room to say that you 'missed' XYZ (whatever is of interest to them). In this sense, some feedback is written just because the marker/reviewer needs to say something.

Apparently, Marx couldn't leave something for a month without thinking on his own that the whole thing needed revising. It can sometimes help to leave that time-distance so that the text no longer feels as if it's 'yours'. Then the criticism doesn't cut so sharply (and speaking from experience, the tendency to immediately (sometimes too hastily) reject the feedback fades away).