Peer Review, or Learning from Victor’s (Our) Mistakes

Victor Frankenstein could have saved himself SO MUCH TROUBLE (and the loss of many loved ones) if he’d just had his work peer reviewed.

Peer review is a process in which you share your writing with other people and other people share their writing with you. The goal is to improve the quality of everyone’s work. While you might not have ever completed peer review in a classroom setting, you’ve probably read over a friend’s writing assignment or had a friend, parent, or guidance counselor read over something that you’ve written before you submitted it. That’s peer review.

It’s important to acknowledge the difference between peer review and proofreading or editing. While your instructor will probably give you specific directions for conducting peer review, a good rule of thumb is that peer review, like revision,  primarily focuses on the content of the writing while proofreading focuses on mechanics such as grammar, spelling, and punctuation. If, however, you notice a specific pattern of errors in your classmate’s writing—perhaps they repeatedly leave out needed commas—you might want to bring this pattern of errors to the writer’s attention. The reason why we don’t focus much on spelling, punctuation, and grammar during peer review is because writing is still developing. There’s no point in worrying much about a comma error in a sentence that your classmate is likely to rewrite as they improve the organization of their paper.

So, what does it mean to focus on the content of the writing?  In a nutshell, focusing on the content means that you help your classmates make sure they are meeting the requirements of the specific assignment. For example, if the assignment is to write an argumentative literary essay, you as a peer review, might need to help the writing determine if they have a clear, argumentative thesis; an easy-to-follow organizational structure; concrete examples and/or evidence from the primary text(s); compelling analysis of these examples and/or evidence; and more. Depending on the particular strengths or weaknesses of your classmates’ writing, you might need to help them determine how to develop more compelling arguments, how to organize their argument logically, how to make a thesis more argumentative, where to focus their attention as they conduct further research, or even how to conclude their paper powerfully.

What to Expect During Peer Review

While the specifics of peer review might vary from assignment to assignment and class to class, here are a few things to anticipate and to keep in mind:

• First and foremost, follow your instructor’s specific directions
• You will work with at least one other classmate
• Instructors will often provide rubrics to use, questions to answer, a form to fill out, or other tools to guide you through the peer review process
•  If you are doing peer review in class (synchronously):
  • The writer might read the paper aloud while the peer reviewers listen, make notes, and then discuss the paper
  • You might trade papers and work through them quietly and then discuss each paper
• If you are doing peer review outside of class (asynchronously),

• You will most likely mark up the assignment using a comments feature on a word processor, LMS, or other application. Make sure that you reach out to your instructor if you have any questions about how to use the tools.

Writers and their peer review partners often have brief discussions prior to, and after, reading one another’s essays. Depending on whether you are completing peer review synchronously or asynchronously, this conversation might take place face-to-face or via an online forum.  Most frequently, these conversations focus on the particular concerns writers have about their drafts. For example, if you have concerns about your topic sentences, ask your peer review partners—before they begin reviewing your paper—to pay special attention to these sentences while reviewing your essay. Along the same lines, you, as a peer reviewer, should ask the writer if they have any specific concerns about their essay before you begin reviewing it.  After everyone has reviewed one anothers’ papers, consider working together to develop an action plan for revision. What are the two or three main revisions that would most improve each essay? Where should each writer focus their attention as they revise?

How to Give Feedback

The most important thing to remember as you review your classmates’ essays  is to provide all of your feedback with an attitude of helpfulness.  As a peer reviewer, it’s your goal to help your classmates write the best version of their essays, so make sure that your feedback you provide—both the praise and the suggestions—are collegial, specific, and actionable.

Students often underestimate their ability to help their classmates, but remember that everyone can provide useful feedback!  While you might not be a wiz with thesis statements, perhaps you have a knack for clear and logical organization. Focus on your own strengths when providing feedback to your peers and trust your gut; if something strikes you as unclear or unwieldy, it probably is.  Follow these steps and you will end up helping your classmates develop a stronger paper.

As mentioned above, it is often useful to have a brief discussion with the writer prior to peer reviewing a paper so ask if the writer has any specific concerns about their paper.  This conversation can help guide your peer review, but remember that you might identify strengths or weaknesses of the essay that the writer themself was not aware of.

Also remember to review the assignment requirements while peer reviewing.  One of the easiest ways to help your peer review partners is to confirm that they have met all assignment requirements. If they have met all requirements, you can point out to the writer how and where, and you can even make suggestions for strengthening these elements of the assignment. If the writer has not met all requirements, make sure that you bring this fact to their attention and provide suggestions for how they can ensure all requirements are met.

Remember also that peer review is not an entirely altruistic act.  One of the best ways to become a better writer is to read lots of different styles of writing, and as you peer review your classmates’ essays, you will undoubtedly be exposed to different writing styles, processes, and approaches.  Helping your peers also allows you to help yourself!

How to Use Feedback

Just as you should give feedback with an attitude of helpfulness, you should receive and use feedback with this same attitude. Remember that your peers are trying to help you write the best possible essay; they are not trying to attack your intelligence or hurt your feelings.  Do your best to separate your essay from you as an individual, and try to accept feedback from your peers graciously. Many of us have been trained early on to view mistakes as failures, but they are the farthest thing from failure unless we treat them that way.  Making mistakes and course-correcting are all part of learning and growing.  The moment we give ourselves permission to make mistakes, to be human and fallible, we are acknowledging that we still have much to learn and that we have the desire to learn it.  Each of us is a work in progress, just as our writing is, and feedback, both from our peers and instructors, gives us the opportunity to grow further and stronger, if we choose to take it.

Deciding when and how to incorporate feedback into your paper is often one of the most difficult aspects of peer review for writers.  While it is your paper and ultimately your choice as to whether or not touse the feedback you receive, remember that your peers are trying to help you. Trust that they have your best interest in mind and that they have taken the peer review assignment seriously. If you have a question about a peer reviewer’s recommendations, ask the reviewer! If you are still unclear, you can always follow up with your instructor.

As a side note here, please know, your instructors are not perfect writers either, by any means; they are simply more experienced writers whose job it is to share that experience with you.  We speak from experience when we say that writing can be hard, frustrating, and sometimes maddening.  It can also be a joy, as we discover things about the text and, often, about ourselves.  Give yourself permission to try, to make mistakes, to seek the knowledge of others, to try again, and to keep growing.