Peer Review Comments

All pageantry aside, a peer review in my opinion is a constructive criticism or suggestions, executed with some level of honesty and integrity, with the objective of improving the work of another person while benefiting oneself as well. In Ms. Wright’s English class this spring, 2012, I had the opportunity to review and make comments or suggestions to the works of some very bright students. I approached the assignment with an open mind, with no pre-conceived ideas. It took me two to three readings in some cases to fully grasp the main ideas or the messages of the writers. Perhaps this was due to the fact that English is not my native language, and that I was processing the information differently. Overall, members of my group wrote brilliant papers.

Nevertheless, as I revisit these comments that I left, in contribution to my peers’ paper, I discovered that most of my concerns were related to the lack of substance in my view in some areas. In addition to the lack of substance, there were also the issue of style; I could not attribute the writing to a particular style. The tones were more conversational and simplistic. In some instances, I noticed some similar errors that I tend to make in my writings as well; which are excessive narration or meandering, thereby reducing the effectiveness of the message. My transitions, as I would come to noticed, are also deficiencies that requires improvement on my part, and I am diligently working to improve on that.

With subsequent in-class exercises and questioning, I have learned that wordiness does not necessarily make one’s writing easy to read or effective, however, clear, coincide use of one’s resources does.