Consider these sentences:
"I improved my essay."
"I made an improvement to my essay."
"How much did you improve your essay?"
"What improvements did you make to your essay?"
What would I say, if I meant the opposite, like
"I changed my essay in a negative way."
"I made a change to my essay that negatively affected it."
"How much did you change your essay in a negative way?"
"How many negative changes did you make to your essay?"
Ideally, this would be a word or short phrase that would work well in other sentences too.
EDIT Additional example:
- "Most improvements were due to me, but this one was made by John."
I'm looking for a verb and a noun. (They don't have to share the same stem, though that'd be great if they did.)