Peer Review

Since I first began writing I have always been taught the importance of proof reading my own paper as well as the importance of having someone else read my paper. Having someone else look at my paper has always helped me. Its often much easier for others to see problems in your writing than for us to see the problems in our writing. Not only does having someone else proof read your work help to catch grammar mistake it can also help improve the content of your paper. They often have ideas that you wouldn’t have thought of on your own.
In class I feel that peer review is extremely helpful. There are a few things, I believe, that could improve peer review and make it even more helpful. At the beginning of class i think the students should take some time to read over their own paper a few times. This would help to possibly catch a few more errors. By catching these little problems themselves it would allow the person that does the peer review to focus on other more important issues. After everyone had reviewed their own piece for a few minutes everyone would pair up in twos. Once these two people came together they would exchange papers and make corrections and other suggestions. Once this was over the two people should exchange the papers back and then talk about them. I feel talking to each other and not just handing back the corrections would be very helpful. This would allow the reviewer to explain the corrections. It would also allow the writer to talk about their concerns and get more input on their paper. I do think though that the peer review worksheet should still be used. On it they the reviewer should write down the thesis and any suggestions and other problems and suggestions for the paper. This is helpful because it gives the writer something to look back at when they are working on editing their paper later. This process with the two people could also be repeated if there was time. Repeating this process would allow the write to get even more feedback from another source. This person could either reinforce the things that needed to be changed or they might be able to even find other things that need to be fix or present other suggestions.
Overall I think that peer review is an extremely helpful process. It is necessary to having a well written paper. No one is perfect and everyone could always use a little help. While I think the idea of two people working together is most helpful I feel that any form of having someone else read over your paper is enough.