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 of a literary analysis does three things:

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  1. It lets the writer know how well the point of his or her analysis comes across to readers.
  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 a literary analysis as a guide.