My ability to give thoughtful peer review has grown greatly since the beginning of the semester. In my peer reviews from project 1, I was mainly giving a lot of local revision notes, such as where paragraphs seemed choppy or where there were run-on sentences. I didn’t know how to give good feedback for global revision, but after having completed a project, and getting feedback from my professor on that project, I was able to develop a better understanding of what global revision suggestions are supposed to be, and I was able to give more detailed feedback such as when I wrote, “I like the generational perspective that you added when talking about Turkle, and that is something that could be added to your thesis.” In this comment, I am pointing out a deep engagement that my peer made and telling her to further develop it. I also feel that my marginal comments have developed from being very mechanical and blunt to being more positive reinforcement focused. The feedback that I gave or project one could have come off as rude and would therefore make my peers less receptive to it. For this round of peer reviews, I tried to emphasize points of good textual engagement, and balance that with more constructive criticism. Additionally, in my first round of peer review, I saw that my feedback letter contained mainly local revisions, as they were easier to point out and find. I only had a few points to make for global revision, and they were very general and not specific to the person whose work I was reviewing. In this peer review, I made sure to include specific instances where my peer was hinting at ideas instead of fleshing them out and gave her specific instances of where she could use ideas that we’ve talked about in class, like adding a counter argument or setting up a Barclays paragraph, in order to help elevate her draft. This is apparent in my feedback letter, which has a lot more global revision suggestions than local, and all points at specific instances in my peer’s essay, such as when I mention how a specific idea in her thesis is good and should be expressed throughout her essay. Overall, I feel my peer reviews have come a long way, and I am better at offering constructive, specific, and helpful feedback that looks at the bigger picture of writing and engaging with texts.
