Peer Review-Very beneficial

          I find that the peer review for our papers is very helpful.  Getting feedback on our papers from our peers is beneficial for several reasons.  One of the main reasons I like doing peer review is that it gives me feedback on what I could do better in my paper. Many of my friends that I go to help for don’t have the time to read through my papers, so having a group of well qualified people to edit my papers is a true blessing.  Secondly, peer review is very good in the fact that my peers often have good ideas that I would have never thought of. In the two times we have done peer review I have was given many good new ideas that I used in my final draft.  For example, some sentences in my rough draft I can’t figure out how to make them less wordy, but peer review helps me fix these wordy sentences and make them short and powerful.  Finally, the outline we get to assist in the editing of the essays is very beneficial.  The questions on the outline help the editing process to be well done.  The questions help the editor focus on areas in the paper that are most crucial to a successful essay.  I really feel the peer reviews are useful part of this course. 

            If I was attempting to organize a peer review I would keep it very similar to the way we are conducting peer review sessions now.  The review of a person’s paper by multiple people is very helpful.   The discussion time (15 minutes on each paper) is sufficient in order to cover the outline and go through the paper with the writer in order to show them what needs to be changed. The only thing I might change in the organization of a peer review would be the amount of people that review an essay.  Instead of having just two people, I would have three.  I personally like to have many people to review my paper in order to find all the weak parts in my writing.   Peer review sessions are organized very well.