Peer Response 3

Your comments and advice are not restricted to the numbered items below: if other ideas for improving the paper occur to you, share them.  Feel free to mark on the draft, but write your response to the questions below on separate paper.  Give your response to the paper's author so that he or she can review your suggestions and turn in your response with his or her final draft.  And in a tactful way, be mean!  Be critical! Be helpful!

1. After reading it through a first time, state your initial impression of the paper.

2. Evaluate the introduction and make suggestions for improvement. Consider:

Is the intro too brief (which would be anything less than roughly half a page)?  Suggest how the intro could be developed more effectively: avoid saying just that the paragraph needs more—make your suggestions specific.

Any places where the intro is choppy?  Suggest transitions where needed.

Make specific and precise suggestions for improvement of the central question, the statement of purpose, or thesis statement. Note that each should focus narrowly on some aspect of the story and mention the story, the author, or particular character(s) directly by name. 

3. Underline the topic sentence of each body ¶ on the draft.  If there is no obvious topic sentence in any body ¶, suggest one.  Make suggestions for improving existing topic sentences—note that each topic sentence should answer the intro question or advance the statement of purpose or thesis squarely and directly. Also underline and evaluate the thesis statement, which should appear in the introduction and/or conclusion.

4. Point out ¶'s that appear to lose or shift focus by getting away from the initial point stated in the topic sentence (think of repeating "key words" throughout the ¶): should any ¶'s be split up into smaller units? Also consider whether any two ¶'s seem to be addressing the same fundamental point and might be better combined.

5. Identify the weakest point in the body of the paper (weakest in content) and make concrete, specific suggestions for improvement.

6. Identify the second weakest point in the body of the paper (weakest in content) and here, too, make concrete, specific suggestions for improvement.

7. Make specific suggestions for improving underdeveloped paragraphs: don't just say "expand" or "elaborate" make precise suggestions. 

8. Identify places where the author needs to explain a specific claim within any ¶ in more detail.  Identify places where the paper needs more evidence or illustration to make points more effective and offer specific suggestions.

9. Evaluate the effectiveness of the conclusion. If the conclusion is less than roughly half a page in length, suggest specific ways of expanding the paragraph: use the expression "for example," and then give actual suggestions.

10. Suggest improvements in the author's use of quotations: there should be at least five quotes from the story and at least one apiece from two secondary sources offering critical commentary on the story. Suggest specific passages from the articles in question or from the story that the author might quote to illustrate better the paper's primary assertions.  Suggest improvements in the introduction of quotes (Nugget 3).

11. Does the author rely too heavily on any quotations from secondary sources to make the essay's primary points instead of using the quotes to back up or support the author's own original points? Any quotations requiring more thorough explanation before or after they are given?

12. Point out successions of short, choppy sentences (approximately one typed line in length or less); suggest ways of combining short sentences to improve the flow of the essay.

13. Grammar and mechanics—especially "simple stuff," golden rules and nuggets, and quotes and documentation. 

14. Indicate any words that strike you as awkward; indicate any words you think the author may be using incorrectly.