Assignment #10- Thinking About Peer Review

The peer reviews that we do in class work very well in my opinion. Getting into smaller groups to discuss the ideas of your paper and even work on the thesis is a great way to get a strong foothold on beginning your paper. If you are still not sure about what topic you want your paper to be about, your group members can lend you ideas in order to help your decision. Brain storming like this is a great way to develop the basis of what your paper will be about and how it will work. When in the larger groups, reading the essays might be a little redundant. I find that giving each member of your group a separate copy of your essay so that they may more thoroughly read through it works much better. By doing this, each person can give the author their own interpretation and separate ideas on how to improve his/her paper. Having more then one person peer review your paper is extremely beneficial because there is a much greater chance that any errors will be spotted.

As a peer reviewer, I believe that a do a pretty good job at helping classmates. I am not afraid to tell them about any mistakes, be it grammatical or just something that makes no sense. I do this because I expect the same from them. No one should be offended by their peer reviewers as it is just constructive criticism. I also consider myself a decent writer, so if I find anything that I find that just doesn't make sense I can help them to the best of my abilities to make it work. I'm also always eager to help someone in need of peer reviewing, and I always do my best in order to make their paper better since they are putting their faith in me. My only vice is that I often get distracted while peer reviewing in class and engage in conversations. Other then that, I believe I am a strong peer reviewer.

 Peer review at an early stage in the writing process is a lot more helpful then in later stages because by then the author has already cemented his ideas on paper, and my not wish to change his/her paper. By peer reviewing at an early stage, you my help someone completely outline their paper using every bit of information that you and the reviewer can come up with in order to make the paper as good as it can be. As groups go, I believe that both small and large groups are necessary. Smaller groups in the preliminary stages of writing a paper can help the author come up with all of his main points and supporting information. Large groups can help after a draft has been written. By having more people read it, you can get more constructive criticism on how to further better your paper. The amount of time we get for peer review is very generous, as we usually get a few days. This is more then enough time to go through everyone's papers thoroughly so that everyone gets a chance for their paper to be reviewed.