Peer Review

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Your instructor may suggest — or require — that you submit an early draft of your essay to a fellow student or small group of students for comment. Such a procedure benefits both author and readers: You get the responses of a reader, and the student-reader gets experience in thinking about the problems of developing an argument, especially such matters as the degree of detail that a writer needs to offer to a reader and the importance of keeping the organization evident to a reader.

Oral peer reviews allow for the give and take of discussion, but probably most students and most instructors find written peer reviews more helpful because reviewers think more carefully about their responses to the draft, and they help essayists to get beyond a knee-jerk response to criticism. Online reviews on a class Web site, through e-mail, or via another file-sharing service are especially helpful precisely because they are not face to face; the peer reviewer gets practice writing, and the essayist is not directly challenged. Sharing documents works well for peer review.

A CHECKLIST FOR PEER REVIEW OF A DRAFT OF AN ARGUMENT

Read through the draft quickly. Then read it again, with the following questions in mind. Remember: You are reading a draft, a work in progress. You’re expected to offer suggestions, and you’re expected to offer them courteously.

In a sentence, indicate the degree to which the draft shows promise of fulfilling the assignment.

  • Is the writer’s tone appropriate? Who is the audience?

  • Looking at the essay as a whole, what thesis (main idea) is advanced?

  • Are the needs of the audience kept in mind? For instance, do some words need to be defined? Is the evidence (e.g., the examples and the testimony of authorities) clear and effective?

  • Can I accept the assumptions? If not, why not?

  • Is any obvious evidence (or counterevidence) overlooked?

  • Is the writer proposing a solution? If so,

    • Are other equally attractive solutions adequately examined?

    • Has the writer overlooked some unattractive effects of the proposed solution?

  • Looking at each paragraph separately,

    • What is the basic point?

    • How does each paragraph relate to the essay’s main idea or to the previous paragraph?

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  • Should some paragraphs be deleted? Be divided into two or more paragraphs? Be combined? Be moved elsewhere? (If you outline the essay by writing down the gist of each paragraph, you’ll get help in answering these questions.)

  • Is each sentence clearly related to the sentence that precedes and to the sentence that follows? If not, in a sentence or two indicate examples of good and bad transitions.

  • Is each paragraph adequately developed? Are there sufficient details, perhaps brief supporting quotations from the text?

  • Are the introductory and concluding paragraphs effective?

  • What are the paper’s chief strengths?

  • Make at least two specific suggestions that you think will assist the author to improve the paper.