Peer review
is one important way in which writers and designers are enabled to produce their best
work. To ensure that each of you have the best chance possible of producing
great assignments, I will not only read and evaluate each of your drafts, but
ask you to review one other student's draft as well. Your review will be
graded based on how complete and helpful it is.
Your
Assignment
You will prepare
a brief review of a peer's draft submission. Your review should be about one page long,
single spaced, and written in paragraph form (not bullet points). If you
want to provide in-line markups or comments on your peer's word processing
file, that will be evaluated toward your grade; but it will not serve as
a substitute for advice written in paragraph form.
Above all, your
review should be constructive. Rather than simply identifying areas
for improvement, you should do your best to offer advice on how the improvements
might be made. Below are a few questions to help guide your thinking as
you read your peer's work. These are not offered as a checklist -- you should
NOT write your review around them. If other questions or better questions
occur to you, by all means ask them!
Guidelines
Before reading
your peer's paper, review the description of the assignment and the grading rubric provided
on the course web site. Your goal is to help your peer produce the best
submission possible. Ask yourself:
Does the
submission respond fully to the assignment? What are
the strongest aspects of the submission as it stands? When it is revised,
what do you want to make sure is not taken out or changed?
Are there specific gaps you could help the authors address? Explain these
as best you can.
Is the text
clear and easy to follow? Are there particular places where the author
“loses” you? How might the language be made clearer?
Does the
assignment hang together well? Did you find any transitions between paragraphs
or sections difficult to follow?
Are some sections longer
or more detailed than you think they need to be to serve their intended
purpose? Are some so short that they are not contributing in a clear way?
Logistics
The day before
our in-class peer review session, e-mail your review to your
peer reviewer.
Grading
Your
peer reviews will be graded according to the following rubric.
A+
Your review points out more than one area for improvement that I missed in my own review, and gives useful advice to your classmate on how to make improvements. You offer serious critique in a helpful way, including
feedback on the content, and the grammar and spelling
if appropriate.
A
A strong review. It offers
a thoughtful critique of the submission in a helpful way,
and does not miss any flaws related to the assessment criteria that I would expect an attentive
student in the class to catch. It provides feedback on grammar and
spelling if appropriate.
B
The
review is helpful and largely complete, but misses one area in which there
is substantial room for improvement in relation to the posted assignment criteria. It
may provide appropriate feedback on grammar and spelling.
C
The review misses more than one
area in which there is substantial room for improvement. It may provide appropriate feedback on grammar and spelling.
D
The review is cursory, ignoring several important flaws. It may
focus exclusively on grammar and spelling, formatting, etc.