essay

Guide to peer review

General rules

Be sure to note both what is working and what isn’t working. No review should be entirely praise or entirely critique! Further, when praising, BE SPECIFIC! If something is “good” you need to tell the writer why it is “good” so that she or he can replicate this move elsewhere in the paper. As a rule, we are going to eliminate the word “like” from our review vocabulary. “Liking” something is a matter of taste, not a commentary on effectiveness (e.g. I like the Boston Celtics…even when they don’t effectively move the ball on offense)

The golden rule: Writing is work. Writing well is hard work. We are all in this together. The more we support each other by pointing out places to improve each other’s work, the better our final papers will be. Remember, grading is not a zero sum game. There isn’t a maximum number of A papers that I can award!

What to look for

1. Thesis—is the thesis specific, argumentative, and definitive? Can a full eight page essay grow out of this paper’s argument? Is the thesis too broad for an eight-ten page paper?

2. Use of evidence—Is the writer using strategies from Harris (“Forwarding”, “Countering”) to have a conversation with their sources—i.e. not just evidence to “support” thesis.

3. Source police—do the sources present pass the CRAAP test? Are there scholarly sources used?

4. Transitions/bridges/metacommentary—Assess how well you as a reader are directed through the essay

5. Relevance—Are all body paragraphs relevant to exploring the thesis’ argument.

6. Clarity—Identify vague pronouns. Identify where sentence structure makes meaning unclear. Be on the lookout for wordy passive verb constructions and comma splices that create run-on sentences.