edition

Peer review sheet: Paper 1 Writer’s name: Siyuan

Reviewer’s name: Wendy

Directions: Put a check mark below if the statement is accurate for your peer’s paper. Then write a letter on this page or a page that you printed out giving some more suggestions for the paper.

____✓___ Introduction presents Rebekah Nathan (using her full name), the title of her book, her profession, and an explanation of her project.

(I would take out the very general first sentence. It doesn’t seem to belong with the rest of your paper. You can introduce Nathan right away.)

_____ Introduction states the one or two points from Chapter Four that the student writer is going to discuss and elaborates enough so the reader understands them.

(I don’t yet see a place in the introduction where you clearly state the points in Nathan that seemed interesting to you and that your paper will explore. I have to read the whole paper to see what points you cover.)

_____At the end of the introduction, the reader finds a thesis statement which expresses the writer’s main point for the whole paper.

(I don’t yet see a sentence that states your topic and your point of view on that topic.)

___?__ The body paragraphs each have just one main point, and that main point supports/relates to the thesis.

(I have a little hard time understanding what your main point is in some paragraphs. For example, on page 2, I don’t get a key point in the paragraph beginning with “On their side…” You write that American students ask lots of questions, though the students in Nathan said Americans are usually not curious about other countries. Do you want to say that your experience is different? But give examples, too.

That same paragraph ends with the idea of using computers, which I didn’t understand. How does it belong in the paragraph?)

✓? The conclusion is more than a summary of what the writer already wrote in his/her paper.

(Your conclusion does offer a new idea, but it is so optimistic (Americans and international students each continue to learn about each other’s cultures and their own), that is does not seem to match your paper. Your paper suggested, like Nathan’s chapter, that American’s don’t care so much about countries outside the U.S., that they don’t want to learn about other cultures! So I wonder which you really believe—the body of your paper or the conclusion?)

Siyuan,

You have a good beginning that introduces Nathan and tells the reader about her student interviews. But I still would like your intro to name which 1 or 2 points from Nathan you are going to address in your paper and what you want to say about those points. A thesis statement is useful for telling the reader these things. One student in our class did it this way: she wrote, “Like Nathan’s students, I was shocked at how little American students know about other cultures and disappointed to realize that they didn’t care much about learning.” (So now we know her opinion: she was shocked and disappointed. And we know her topic: American ignorance.)

Check your facts, too. Does Nathan really say that American students ask lots of questions? I thought her students reported the opposite, that they aren’t curious about other cultures; they only ask a few stereotypical questions about food or simple things.

Sometimes I just didn’t understand your meaning: For example, I understand that you like the NBA, but what do you mean about liking a “single”?

If you have not seen Lori, I hope that you can. I think it would help a lot.