Good tips on giving and taking criticism

I had troubles opening the pages as well but when I changed my browser from safari (mac) to firefox I could open them without problems. Unfortunately that happens a lot.. I wish website creators would just use standards...

I know Ellen slightly so I may tell her that the pages are problematic in some browsers - thanks for pointing that out. She does everything herself though so I know she's permanently very busy and may well not change the pages for some time.

They are useful pieces I think - I refer back to them from time to time and find that she covers most of the issues on criticism in a nice open way.

I just realised that by just commenting on the browser issue I was not giving very good criticism myself! I appreciate the info on the site very much, it made me much more aware of the impact my criticism can have on an artists and at the same time made me aware that critic on my art is not critic on me. Sometimes I just forget the latter!

Oh don't worry. I think I'm often not the best critic in the world either. When I was teaching (undergrad and postgrad) regularly I was much better - because you just HAVE to be able to give clear critique of course. But now I'm quite out of the habit and I don't always feel I have the time to give useful input anyway. Fortunately there are others here who usually leap in generously.