Peer Review

Peer review is helpful to students in many ways. It allows students to read and learn from their peer’s writing styles, it helps students look at writing critically and it helps the author’s own writing. If I was to redesign peer review, I would introduce some new steps to help the reviewer successfully look at the paper on different levels. This would allow the reviewer to explore the levels of writing in a much deeper way.
First, I would have the reader read the paper and look at it as a whole. Does it make sense? Who is the audience? Is it organized? What is the purpose of the paper? Is it successful in achieving that purpose? What are the main ideas and how are they supported? How does that fit with the thesis? Also, I would have the reader recognize how it made them feel. What sort of emotions did this paper bring about? Was it intended to do that? The reader can also identify what type of paper this is supposed to be, such as persuasive, expository, etc. and understanding the type of paper can help in understanding how it was written.
Next, I would suggest the reviewer reads the paper again, but this time he focuses solely on sentence structure and grammar. What sentences are awkward or unclear? I would suggest the reviewer look for varying sentence structure and length. What words are unclear? Is there anything that can be shortened or summarized to be more concise? Is the writer using correct grammar? If not, what can be changed? This will help the reader become aware of not only the big purpose of the paper, but the little aspects of the papers such as vocabulary, grammar, sentences, which are essential to the paper as a whole.
As far as the class goes, I would set it up similar to the way it is done in our English class. I would hand out a check list of things to look for in the paper. Two areas would be covered as I said before: the paper as a whole and the paper in the smaller aspects. This would insure that the student-reviewers do not only focus on one thing and leave out the other, because both aspects of the paper are essential to good writing. Also, I like how we get into groups for peer review, because if someone does get done early, the students can take advantage of the time and get another person to read their writing. The more people who read the writing, the better the reviews, because others may catch something that one person may not notice.