Peer Review

I have always been taught that a piece of writing is never fully complete. There are always errors, corrections, and perfections to be made. People either hate or love the concept of peer review; I however am in favor of it. I am more than willing to be given suggestions to better improve my writing and I learn so much from other people’s comments.
I think an interesting way to construct a peer review class would be almost like a public speaking course. I feel like I learn a lot about a person’s writing when I am able to read it aloud, and I tend to catch more mistakes when I do. I would definitely have the students read their work aloud just to get a sense of how people besides themselves write. I find it interesting to see how people formulate responses and I love to give people suggestions and compliments for their work. I feel like misunderstandings throughout a piece of writing can be found more easily when read aloud. Personally, I always read my papers aloud to one of my friends or peers just so I can get suggestions and catch myself on little mistakes.
If I was able to design my own class, I would give each individual the chance to get their paper reviewed at least three times. The more suggestions given would result in a more complete paper; whatever you consider to be complete. Writing is a process over time, so I would spend more class time perfecting grammar and learning how to catch mistakes. I would definitely focus on tight writing and deleting words that are not needed because I know I tend to do that when I write. Overall, I think I would just stick to the basics. I would make sure that everyone would be open to suggestions and not take offense to too many corrections.
Peer review is so important and I feel like some students do not take advantage of it as much as they should. I know that I tend to get bored with reading papers, but I would rather have more people give me suggestions and make corrections than get a bad grade on a paper. I honestly usually look at one paper, just because my peers tend to do the same. I think everyone just needs to make the effort to move around and get different people to read their papers every time. I feel like I always have the same people read my papers and I am not getting as many suggestions and corrections as I would like and also that I most likely need. I do not think anything is wrong with our peer review process now, but I do think it is up to the students themselves to get out of it what they want. The more students put in the more they will get out of it.