Educational Research: Guidelines for Peer-Reviewing

During PEER REVIEW, your classmate may pinpoint all of the grammatical issues that he/she finds in your document, as well as reviewing your work for structural requirements and content.

The goal of PEER REVIEW is that classmates work together to improve each other's writing.

Advantages of peer-reviewing

• Helps students identify strengths and weaknesses in their own writing and in their peers’ work
• Gives students the opportunity to bounce ideas off of each other
• Provides students with additional perspectives on their writing
• Teaches students the vocabulary and terminology of writing
• Encourages students to see writing as a process where feedback can help make their writing better
• Prompts students to write for and address the needs of a specific audience or reader (in this case, the instructor)
• Encourages students to read texts more critically, which can transfer to course readings
• Gives students more examples of how to write at the college level
• Teaches students how to respond to the concerns of others who have read their writing
• Models strategies for self-editing that students can use as they revise

The goal of peer review is to help you learn to give effective feedback to your classmates about their writing. The peer review process should look something like this:

• Before you even make your first comment, read the document all the way through.
• Make sure you leave enough time for you to read through, respond, and for your peer to edit his/her document with your comments before any deadlines.
• If you are provided with a feedback form to fill out and something is unclear, do not ignore the item but ask the instructor for clarification.
• Point out the strengths as well as the weaknesses of the document.
• Offer suggestions, not commands.
• Editorial comments should be appropriate and constructive. There is no need to be rude. Be respectful and considerate of the writer's feelings.
• Be sure that your comments are clear and text-specific so that your peer will know what you are referring to (for example, terms such as "unclear" or "vague" are too general to be helpful).
• As a reader, raise questions that cross your mind, points that may have not occurred to your peer author.
• Try not to overwhelm your peer with too much commentary. Follow the feedback form and the issues you are supposed to address.
• Be careful not to let your own opinions bias your review (for example, don't suggest that your peer completely rewrite the paper just because you don't agree with his/her point of view).
• Reread your comments before passing them on to your peer. Make sure all your comments make sense and are easy to follow.
• Avoid turning your peer's paper into your paper.

Guidelines for Offering Feedback

• Be mindful of your tone as you respond to your peer’s writing: There’s certainly no need to go overboard with niceties, but consider integrating a couple of positive comments for things that seem to be working well, especially at the beginning of your comments. You might want to use language such as: “I like how you . . .” or “I’m impressed by. . . .” Essentially, think about ways to achieve something like the balance between being honest and congenial that you’d aim for if you were talking face-to-face. A tone that works particularly well is one that is both friendly and supportive.
• Ask questions: Your job as a reviewer is not to fix the paper, but rather to help your classmate understand how the writing affects readers. Given this approach, it can be very helpful to ask questions, just as you might do if you were talking face-to-face. It will be helpful for the writer to reflect on these questions when making writing choices.
  • Questions about claims. You might ask, “What in the readings or evidence prompted you to develop this claim? Why are you interested in this aspect of the topic? How does the evidence support your claim? How many pieces of evidence do you have (and does the quantity of evidence say anything about the strength of that evidence)? Do you have additional evidence that isn’t included in this draft?”
  • Questions about evidence. If the writer needs more evidence, you might say that you would like to hear more about a particular point, that you didn’t understand a certain point, and/or that you have additional unanswered questions.
  • Questions about organization. If you think a certain paragraph doesn’t belong, you can describe your response as a reader; for example, “When I got to this paragraph, I wondered what it was doing here – it seemed like you had been talking about A, but all of a sudden, here’s this paragraph about B. Can you help your reader understand how this paragraph should fit in?” The student may need better transitions or may have left out something important that will clarify matters, or they may see that the paragraph doesn’t really belong. But let the writer make those decisions – if you say, “Take that one out!” you are making the writing decision for her/him.
  • Questions about sentence structure. How might you help your classmate learn to revise a sentence without changing it? Make up a similar sentence and carry out your revisions on it, explaining what the problem is, what options there are for revising it, and why you selected the option you did. Offer several different options, not just one, so that the writer sees that he/she has many choices.
  • Questions about word choice. Ask why the writer chose the word; tell what the word means to you and why it seems odd to you in this context. You could say, for example, “In your opening paragraph, I wonder how you chose the word ‘bellicose.’ When I read this word, I think of someone who is aggressive and warlike; is that what you meant?”
• Beware of taking over: Avoid the following:
  • Revising the writer’s thesis or claim
  • Presenting new evidence for the writer to include
  • Rewriting individual sentences
  • Telling the writer to use a different word (and suggesting what the new word should be)
  • Telling the writer to remove a paragraph or to move it to a specific place
• Consider your language choices: Because your classmate isn’t with you and you can’t see her/his reactions, be sure to write in a respectful and fairly neutral style. It’s important to avoid evaluative claims; instead of saying, “Your paper is really successful,” it would be more appropriate to say, “After seeing your presentation of the evidence, I was convinced of your argument.” Be especially careful about anything that might sound overly harsh, offensive, or patronizing.
• Make your organization explicit: If you are responding in writing, consider simple visual strategies (bullet points, numbering, boldface, etc.) to keep your content clear and to emphasize your main points. If you are recording your comments, you may want to use language such as: “First I’ll make some suggestions related to your organization. Second, I will discuss ways you might make your claims more effective. Finally, since you asked about commas, I will point out a few places where you make the same error and include a link to a handout that should help.”