Throughout this English 110 course, I have learned so many valuable skills that I will forever hold on to. In the first peer review, I didn’t have the reading and annotating skills that I have now, so the peer review wasn’t very helpful to my peer. Below, I have uploaded my first peer review and it is basically a “global revision.” I didn’t dive into the writing and find stronger alternatives to other strategies. I found myself complimenting the writing way more than trying to find a way to critic it, which opposes the main point of a peer review. In the first peer review, I posted many comments “dead-end comments” such as, “Potentially a good spot for a Khullar quote”, “Condense this sentence”, “I like this”, “I agree with this.” These comments do not lead my peer in any direction whatsoever, therefore making them global revisions because I was only looking at the big picture and not providing any more advice. Looking at my third peer review, you are able to notice the huge difference in my criticizing style. Not only did I tell my peer where they needed to add quotes/extra information, but I also supplied my peer with the quotes and explanations that I thought would fit into the paragraph and better support their argument. For the third peer review, my peer was struggling with exceeding the small word count of her essay. She had almost 400 extra words that she didn’t need, so we needed to figure out a plan to help her condense the information. With the lack of knowledge that I had in my first peer review, I would have written something along the lines of “condense information,” which wouldn’t have supplied her with anymore knowledge of what to do, leading her to a dead end. In the third peer review, I wrote “Here is what I would do with this paragraph. I would condense the paragraph above it and stick to main points, and then combine it with this paragraph because it does talk about how children with divorced parents have had their education affected. If you do this, your essay would be so much stronger and it would be a very powerful and moving paragraph that suits the topic of your essay perfectly.” As you can tell, I dived into the actual writing and provided her with really good local revisions. Global revisions help to get a big picture, but local revisions provide your peers with a fresh set of eyes and new information.
I have noticed a substantial change in my peer reviews over the course of this semester. Even though we only did three peer reviews in this class, I have learned so much. I have had peers who provided me with so much great information, and others who have provided me the bare minimum. As a writer, I know how it feels to get minimal critiques, and I didn’t want my peers to feel like that, so I did everything I could in this class to learn from my peers and provide my best feedback.
Peer Review 1:
Peer Review 3:
