Learning Outcome #4: Be able to critique their own and others’ work by emphasizing global revision early in the writing process and local revision later in the process.

Framing Statement: Before this course, I had never been tasked with peer review to the extent at which we did it in this class. I now feel competent in my ability to critique the work of my peers and provide helpful revisions that they could use to strengthen their writing. Below I have provided screenshots from feedback I left on one of my peer’s Project #3 paper. During the peer review process, I make it my main priority to focus on large global revisions, only pointing out subtle local revisions where I thought it was very necessary. Some of the global revisions that I addressed in this paper were things such as thinking about the inclusion of a hook, asking for more specificity within their thesis, adding more personal analysis, and recommending the addition of more clear topic sentences at the beginning of each body paragraph. I not only felt that my comments were helpful because they focused more on global revision, but they were also helpful because I tended to ask questions within them in hopes to aid thought and even added examples of what I meant. For example, when commenting on their claim I wrote, “I can tell this is your thesis. I would recommend you get more specific. How is it changing who we are? What do you mean not necessarily for the better?” As you can see, I ask questions to my peer to help them find specific ways to specify their thesis. Along with asking follow up questions to aid in the revision process for my peers, I also include simple examples of what I mean to help my peers understand my comment better. When providing constructive criticism on the start of a body paragraph I provide the comment, “Make this more of topic sentence. This could be as simple as removing the first part of this sentence and condensing it to just ‘Technology makes things more accessible, taking away authenticity in our work and interactions too.'” Within this comment, I provided my peer with an effective example of a topic sentence using the thoughts she already had down. I find it important that I did not write a completely new thought as that would have taken away from the originality of my peer’s work. The last piece of evidence that I would like to showcase to demonstrate my ability to effectively peer review the work of others is the end note I provided at the bottom of the essay. Within this end note, I formally addressed the author of the paper and began with a complement. I then summarized my main findings, including things that I though they did well, along with areas of critique that I addressed throughout the paper. For example, within this particular end note, I stated that my peer did a great job putting voices in conversation with one another but should go back and resist their thesis, add a hook, and make sure they are integrating more of their personal ideas throughout the essay. This endnote, along with the other marginal comments I left, gave helpful feedback as they focused mostly on global revisions and included guiding questions and specific examples of possible changes.