Learning Outcome #4: Peer Review
I feel that the concept of peer review heavily ties into the first learning outcome, that being viewing writing as a recursive process. Having a fresh set of eyes to look at your paper means that they will see things that you will not, like a spelling error, or an issue with sentence structure. When I write, I generally know what I want to say, but what I want to say and what I write on the paper aren’t necessarily the same thing. I might write something and think that it makes perfect sense, but someone else reading it might think that it’s confusing. A benefit to having “Peer Review Guidelines” is that it focuses the peer’s attention to the same parts of the paper that the teacher is going to be focusing on when they grade. We get graded on whether or not we have a clear thesis statement and it’s good to know if someone who isn’t us can recognize it. Additionally, weak quotes and weak analysis are what brings down a person’s grade, so having someone draw our attention to it is a benefit.
Peer reviewing another person’s paper can help be an example or a guideline for what your paper should be like. When I peer review I like to look at the length and the quotes to make sure that I’m on track with my own paper. Also, if I misread the instructions and did part of the assignment wrong, it is better to find out in peer review then in your final draft after you get it back from the teacher. Peer review improves your own writing because it exposes you to new writing techniques that you can incorporate into your own writing, and because you might become aware of something when reviewing someone’s paper and then realize that same thing can be applied to your paper as well.
Lastly, the final benefit of peer review is that extends your writing beyond yourself. Far too often, when I write, I do so in a quite room and softly speak to myself what I want to say. Peer review puts me in a classroom with another person and I can explain to them what I wrote. It takes two individual writers, who so far have done everything on their own, and lets them work together.
