6.6 Peer Review

Students tend to have a love/ hate relationship with peer review. Some have had wonderful, helpful, rich histories with classmates offering feedback on their work; others have the perspective that peer review is pointless.

When it works, both giving and receiving peer feedback can be a great learning opportunity. If you look at other people’s work in progress, you undoubtedly get some ideas about how you could do something different or better in your draft. But even if you are looking at a draft that is weaker than yours, you may learn a lot: about what writing looks like when it is not working, perhaps why it is not working, or even what specific choices or revisions that writer could make to strengthen the draft. Identifying what makes things work can be hard to detect in our work.

Remember that in peer review, you don’t need to cast judgment on a classmate’s work.

You don’t need to take on the role of a “grader” or offer suggestions to fix the paper. You don’t need to correct things. Sometimes, what is more valuable is if you share your experience as a reader of the draft, explaining what felt easy and clear to you, and also where you struggled to understand what the writer was trying to accomplish. Be honest, accurate, detailed, and descriptive. Write in such a way that you offer your genuine readerly perspective to your partner, not a list of directions or directives. Take these tips to mind when you practice peer review:

• Focus on content and not always spelling and grammar. While proofreading is important. It often varies from person to person. Try to focus on the bigger picture.
• Respond as an interested reader, not a critic. Your classmates need to know how their writing is coming across to another person. As most of us experience when proofreading, it is hard to pull ourselves out of our drafts when editing.
• Use the prompts and assignment guidelines. The essay prompts and guidelines reflect what will be graded by your instructor. That is an important thing to focus on!

Rhetorical Reading Questions for Peer Feedback

The use of rhetorical reading questions can offer feedback on the effectiveness of the text-in-progress. Ask yourself the following while reading your own or a peer’s draft:

• What is the writer’s main point? Can you see what your partner’s main point is in this draft? Is the point held consistently throughout the text, or did you get lost while reading at any point? If so, can you point out where reference to or reiteration of the main point would have helped your reading experience?
• What information does the writer provide to support the central idea? Did you need more information to feel like the central idea was well supported? Do all paragraphs relate to the text’s central idea?
• What kind of evidence does the writer use? Is it based more on fact or opinion? Can you identify where this evidence comes from? Are the sources authoritative and credible?
• Is the writer working towards achieving the assignment’s purpose? This is a question that is easiest to answer if you fully understand the assignment’s purpose. What are the goals of the assignment? What are the goals of this particular writer? Do those goals overlap?
• Describe the tone in the draft. Is it friendly? Authoritative? Does it lecture? Is it biting or sarcastic? Does the author use simple language, or is it full of jargon? Does the language feel positive or negative? Now, consider the audience for this essay. Does the tone seem appropriate for that audience?

Using “I” statements to offer feedback on others’ work

Offer observations of assignment goals met/not met

1. I see your thesis at the end of your intro paragraph
2. I see transition phrases at the beginning of each new paragraph
3. I can see that you…  which is a goal of this paper
4. In your… paragraph I see….but I do not see…
5. I do not see a Works Cited.

Express your experience as a reader

1. My understanding is that the thesis of this paper should… I did not clearly see… in your thesis. Instead, I see (explain).
2. I was confused by this sentence (share the sentence) and I took it to mean (explain how you read that sentence).
3. In paragraph… I thought that based on what you said in the first sentence, the whole paragraph would discuss X. But it looks to me like, at the end of the paragraph, you begin discussing Y, which felt to me like a new and different idea.

Express places where, as a reader, you were drawn into the writing

1. I thought that the second paragraph was really clear and interesting because…
2. I like the way that you structured paragraph X because …
3. I appreciate your use of (signal phrases? citations? MLA format? transitions? etc) because I have been struggling with that in my writing. Thanks for the example.

Additionally, use complete sentences and be specific. Refer to specific parts of the essay and explain yourself avoiding one- or two-word responses.

Phrases that can be ineffective

These types of phrases are telling the writer what to do and/or simply offering judgment. They are “you” statements, not “I” statements. Try to avoid these types of peer assessment phrases:

• You should fix…
• The assignment says to… but you didn’t do that
• You need more…
• You need less…
• To make the paper better, you need to…