Evaluating the Draft: Getting a Critical Reading

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Your instructor may arrange a peer review session in class or online, where you can exchange drafts with your classmates and give each other a thoughtful critical reading, pointing out what works well and suggesting ways to improve the draft. A good critical reading does three things:

  1. It lets the writer know how well the reader understands the point of the essay.
  2. It praises what works best.
  3. It indicates where the draft could be improved and makes suggestions on how to improve it.

One strategy for evaluating a draft is to use the basic features of the common ground essay as a guide.