Literary Analysis: Rough Draft

Peer Review Guidelines for Literary Analysis

As we discussed in class, peer review is an integral part of the writing process for your literary analysis (and for writing at various stages in most professional environments, as well). When you receive feedback from a peer, you gain valuable advice for how to improve your use of textual evidence and the framing of your argument, among other things. However, I am of the camp that believes it is just as helpful, if not more so, to be the one conducting peer review. Conducting such reviews asks you to pay close attention to the way essays are structured and argued, thereby improving your own skills as a writer.

Peer review is worth 50 points of the 250 points you can earn for your literary analysis, and the breakdown of these points is given below. I understand that the essay(s) you are reviewing may be in a different stage of development than your own, and that the quality of your feedback will, to some extent, depend on what you have to work with. Please do not be concerned if you have been given an incomplete or otherwise underdeveloped paper to review. I will take that into consideration when evaluating your feedback.

Please put your commentary into Canvas as a comment on your peer’s paper. If you prefer to download your peer’s paper as a .docx and use the MS Word Comment feature as well, you may do that, and re-upload the file which contains those comments as well as your “end” comments.

Evaluation Criteria

Please write an overview for your peer analyzing the following criteria. I do not have a minimum word count for these criteria because what can be said for each paper will vary, but the average is generally a short paragraph for the first two criteria and a couple sentences each for the second two criteria. I am looking for a “good faith effort” based on what you have been given.

Analysis of thesis/argument (15 points): Does the paper have a thesis? If so, is it an engaging thesis which is contestable—that is, one which is not obviously correct, and could potentially be argued another way? Is the paper centered around this thesis, with all of its points geared towards demonstrating it? Do you think the content of the paper reflects a different thesis than what the paper claims to argue? If so, what do you think needs to be adjusted—the thesis itself, the content of the paper, or a little of both?

Analysis of use of textual evidence and sources (15 points): How well does the paper incorporate textual evidence and quotations to support their thesis? Is there enough evidence (or does the paper go overboard with examples)? Do the chosen quotations support the points the paper is trying to make? Does the paper spend adequate time breaking down each quote? Does the paper incorporate at least one source in a meaningful way?

Analysis of essay organization and structure (15 points): Is the paper organized in a logical manner? Would an alternate organizational structure be helpful? Do you have any ideas for what an alternate organizational structure might be?

Analysis of writing style (5 points): In this section you should consider your peer’s writing style at the sentence level, including overall sentence structure, grammar, and syntax. You are not responsible for correcting any errors, but do note if they have a consistent problem, like comma splices/run-on sentences, missing apostrophes, etc.