Peer Review Guidelines

Please keep in mind first and foremost that all peer review activities should be constructive and supportive. Please be considerate in how you phrase your feedback, both written and verbal, and in turn be generous and open when receiving feedback from others.

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• Be honest. Many of you discussed experiences where peer review was unfruitful because your partner was hesitant to provide constructive criticism. Keep in mind that we are all aware that writers always have more to learn, and hearing from others about their honest perceptions of our work helps us engage in that learning. As long as you are generous and considerate in how you deliver your feedback, your partner will appreciate it much more than a generic, unconstructive response like "it looks good" or "I like it."

• Listen generously. Just as you have valuable perspectives to offer your partner(s) that they may not have considered before, your partners also have insights to offer that may be different from your own. Listen carefully and openly to what your partners have to say – you want your feedback to be heard and respected, and you are expected to provide your partners that same courtesy.

• Be as specific as possible when providing feedback – e.g., "I'm having trouble understanding this paragraph because…" is generally more helpful than "this paragraph is vague." Conversely, "this analysis is really insightful, I hadn't made this connection between and before and it’s made me consider the situation in a new light" is much more meaningful than "I like this analysis"!

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Peer Review Prep Instructions

Please prepare for our peer review activity by reading through your Writing Partners' drafts and answering the following questions for each draft as you read. The answers to these questions will help guide your discussions during in-class peer review.

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• Mention at least one interesting, unexpected, or thought-provoking idea in your partner's draft. How does this idea change or improve your own understanding of the rhetorical situation and/or community knowledges?

• Describe your partner's approach to the rhetorical situation. How do they present the rhetorical situation of their chosen text? What aspects of the rhetorical situation do they identify?

• Pose at least one open-ended question (do not ask a "yes or no" question) that your partner's draft brings up for you. Why is this question important to consider in providing a robust rhetorical account of this community's public-facing text?