Over the last couple of months we’ve explored the general value of introspection and self reviews. This value is one of the reasons that the Level 3 Advancement Process requires a comprehensive Self Review (in caps to distinguish it from normal self reviews). It’s important for L3s to be able to examine themselves honestly and […]
A lot of great stuff has been written about the feedback process, especially how to deliver it: Talk to the person first. Send a draft of the review in e-mail form. Balance the positive and negative feedback. Here’s the problem: these points are all centered on sparing the feelings of the person receiving the feedback. […]
You know how excited parents celebrate their children’s first tottering attempts at walking? How they ooh and ah and cheer and gasp and take dozens of pictures to post on social media? When I visited my parents recently, they did not cheer even though I walked quite well. Obviously my parents love me, but they […]
Hello and welcome to the sixth edition of the Feedbag! Last time, we covered the best approach for writing a tournament report about a tournament that had some tournament organizer trouble. This month, our topic will be drafts! No, not the kind that incinerate all your tickets on Magic Online! The kind that you write […]
This month’s contribution to the Self-Review Series comes from the editor’s desk. Thanks, , for letting me jump in. Self-reviews are pointless. They take too much time. They’re redundant. Part One of this series is meant to convince you otherwise. All the same, Riki and I have recently asked a number of judges why they don’t […]
My First Review – Abby Kraycar Welcome back to another edition of My First Review. Although reviews typically cover observations from a single event, all the work that judges do outside of events creates many opportunities for feedback. In her first review, Abby Kraycar took the time to acknowledge Chris Wendelboe’s contributions to the judge […]
You know, writing and judging really have a lot in common. That probably has something to do with why I enjoy both of them so much. One of those things, one that it took me an incredibly long time to get over, is that it’s hard to know how you’re doing unless someone else tells […]
Let me tell you a story about the 4-minute barrier for the world record one-mile run. For nearly a decade, the record stood untouched at 4:01.4. People thought running a mile in under four minutes was literally impossible. Then, in 1954, Roger Bannister ran a mile in 3:59.4. The next month, John Landy broke the […]
Hello and welcome to the fifth installment of the Feedbag! Last time, we covered how to have a conversation with someone who has provided feedback you disagree with. Our question for this month comes to us from “PO’d by TO”: I’d like to write a tournament report, but my experience with the TO was […]
Self reviews are somehow simultaneously the easiest and hardest type of review. What makes them so, and how can you average those two sides out to find a happy medium? It’s common for newer judges to not even realize that writing a self review is a thing that they can do. With your first exposure […]