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If you want (your team) to write better, start with your Google Docs comments
If you want (your team) to write better, start with your resolved Google Docs comments. It’s a treasure trove of feedback that you’ve probably forgotten all about.
A lot of teaching and learning happens asynchronously in Google Docs, via comments. Editors write in Suggesting Mode, authors make changes and resolve.
The problem: Once a Google Docs comment gets resolved, it’s really difficult to dig up. Sometimes, it does take a lot of time — try locating a specific comment for a 120-page book — but other times, it’s just a complete pain in the neck. I don’t want to spend even two minutes scanning through a set of comments that I can’t command+F through.
I’m a writer too, so I know for a fact that some writers will accept suggested changes (with the occasional “Thanks!”) barely a millisecond after reading it. It also is exponentially more difficult to keep track of in a larger doc.
That means, the writer has to rely on one impression of a passing comment amongst a dozen made on their memory. Or, take it upon themselves to copy and paste their editor’s comments into a separate Google Doc…
Which is exactly what I did starting 2015 when I worked at Lifehacker.
