Did you know? A group can finish a school essay with every comment marked ‘resolved’ while the actual paragraph still contains the mistake that started the discussion. ‘Resolved’ sounds like ‘fixed’, but the two words are not always the same action.
The useful answer: A comment raises a question or gives feedback without necessarily rewriting the text; a suggestion proposes a specific edit for someone to review; and tracked changes record insertions, deletions or formatting edits so they can be accepted or rejected. These terms help students make decisions about evidence, clarity and authorship instead of clicking every green tick and hoping the group draft improves.
The sentence three classmates disagreed about
Imagine three Secondary 2 students preparing an English-language report about reusable water bottles. The working sentence reads: ‘All reusable bottles keep drinks cold for twenty-four hours.’ No measurement has been supplied to support the universal claim. One classmate adds the comment: ‘How do we know this?’ Another suggests a revision: ‘Some insulated bottles are designed to keep drinks cold for long periods, depending on conditions.’ The third student is responsible for the final evidence check.
These are fictional students and an invented editing exercise, not a documented study result. The suggested sentence is more cautious, but it still needs evidence if the group wants to make a performance claim. Accepting a suggestion changes the document; it does not certify that the statement is true.
What a comment does differently from an edit
A comment can ask ‘Which source supports this?’ or note ‘The reader does not know who “they” refers to.’ It is a conversation attached to a passage. A tracked change records an actual proposed text alteration such as replacing ‘all’ with ‘some’ or inserting a unit. A suggestion is often a review workflow that makes a proposed edit visible to the writer before it is accepted.
The exact menus vary by editor. Microsoft’s guide to feedback in shared Word documents distinguishes comments from tracked textual edits, while its guidance on accepting and rejecting tracked changes explains the review decision. Some online editors call their review mode Suggesting rather than Track Changes. Learn the actual feature your class uses instead of assuming different apps behave identically.
An editor’s miniature vocabulary bank
- Comment on a claim: attach a question or explanation to text; it does not by itself replace the wording.
- Suggest a revision: offer a proposed change for a writer or authorised editor to evaluate.
- Track a deletion: show that words were removed and preserve a reviewable record before the change is accepted or rejected.
- Accept a change: approve the proposed insertion, deletion or formatting change into the working document.
- Reject a change: decline a proposed edit so it does not become part of the text.
- Resolve a thread: mark a conversation as addressed in the collaboration tool. That action is not identical to accepting a tracked change.
The collocations matter. We insert a comment, reply to feedback, suggest a revision, accept an edit and resolve a thread. Try replacing every one of those verbs with ‘do’. The reader would lose the ability to tell which stage of the process has happened.
A worked revision from vague to supportable
Draft: ‘This experiment proved that plants always grow faster in sunlight.’ Comment: ‘What did we measure, and what was the comparison?’ Proposed revision: ‘In our classroom observation, the seedlings near the window grew taller than those farther from it during the recorded week.’ The revision is a model of more bounded wording, not a claim about actual seedlings. A responsible group must still check the data, conditions and whether ‘sunlight’ was the cause.
Now imagine a tracked deletion of the word ‘proved’ and insertion of ‘suggested’. That edit can prevent an overstatement, but it could also hide an unresolved issue: the group may lack a control, have too few measurements or confuse height with overall plant health. Vocabulary precision and evidence checking work together; neither replaces the other.
The responsible group-writing sequence
- Read before editing. State the author’s purpose and identify what is factual, inferred, persuasive or decorative language.
- Comment on a problem. Ask one specific question rather than saying ‘This is bad.’
- Suggest an alternative. Preserve the intended meaning where possible and explain the reason for the change.
- Check evidence. Confirm names, dates, measurements, units, quotations and references against the group’s actual sources.
- Accept, reject or discuss. Let an agreed editor make the decision. A majority vote does not turn an unsupported fact into a true one.
- Resolve after checking. Once the concern has been addressed, mark the conversation resolved and read the paragraph in its final context.
Teachers can assign roles without inventing a complicated bureaucracy: one learner checks factual claims, another reviews the logic of the paragraphs, and another checks readability. Rotate roles next time so no child becomes only the ‘grammar person’. A parent helping a child at home can ask, ‘What changed in the meaning when you accepted that edit?’ That is more useful than doing every correction for them.
A ten-minute revision practice without account access
Print or copy this sentence onto paper: ‘Our class survey shows that every student prefers online lessons.’ Give the group a fictional survey summary saying that 12 of 20 respondents preferred online lessons. Learner A writes a comment: ‘Every student? Check the count.’ Learner B writes a suggestion: ‘In this sample, 12 of 20 respondents said they preferred online lessons.’ Learner C decides whether to accept the proposal after checking that the survey summary actually supports those numbers. The data are invented solely for the practice.
Transfer the exercise to a Science explanation, a Mathematics solution narrative or a secondary G1/G2/G3 English writing task. What changes? The subject vocabulary: sample and respondent in surveys; estimate and measure in Science; therefore and provided that in Mathematics. What stays constant is the workflow of observing, explaining and reviewing a change.
Misconceptions that spoil good collaboration
‘No Markup means there are no edits.’ Not necessarily. In Word, a view that hides markup does not remove unresolved tracked changes. Reviewers may still need to accept or reject them before sharing a final version.
‘Resolve means delete.’ In some editors, resolved comments remain in the document’s comment history and can be reopened. Deleting a thread is a different operation.
‘The most confident person should approve every suggestion.’ Confidence is not evidence. Ask who owns the final wording, who can verify the underlying fact, and whether the sentence says more than the data show.
‘Tracked changes are the same as version history.’ No. Tracked changes are a review representation of edits; version history is a broader record of saved document states. Learn both, but do not use one word for the other.
Frequently asked questions
Should I comment on spelling mistakes? A direct suggestion may be clearer for simple typos; use a comment when the writer needs an explanation or decision.
Should I accept every teacher comment? Understand the instruction and revise accordingly, but remember that comments may not be literal replacement text.
Can a peer rephrase my voice without permission? Agree on editing rights and preserve intended meaning; discuss meaningful changes rather than silently overwriting a person’s paragraph.
What if two suggested edits conflict? Read each against the assignment purpose and evidence, choose the best-supported wording, and explain the decision.
This is vocabulary used in action: comment, revision, acceptance and resolution each name a different operation. Explore How English Works: Cohesion and Coherence for paragraph connections, and visit Vocabulary Meaning & Precision when two similar words produce very different instructions.