Peer review was always hard for me because I never felt like I could help my peers or that I was in the place to critique their work. Throughout high school I mostly would edit grammar and wording but I would never comment on the person’s ideas because I was scared of offending them. The peer review guide was very helpful in learning how to comment on other people’s writing because it provided ideas on what to comment on and how to say it. This includes wording that does not sound mean and degrading such as I wonder, what if, I’m confused about, etc. This made the first peer review slightly less stressful and scary. For the first peer review we workshopped in a small group by sharing Google Docs and commenting on them. This style of revision is probably easiest for local revision because you can highlight and comment on exactly what needs to change, and the author can click on the comment and be brought directly to what was highlighted. I know that many of my comments in the first peer review were probably not extraordinarily helpful to the person I was reviewing because they were more local revisions than global revisions. 

For peer review 2 we workshopped with a partner and were given a sheet with questions to answer as we read. This includes questions like “do the claim sentences reflect the thesis?” or “What is the hook?” I felt that this way of reviewing was more beneficial to global revision because we were not commenting directly on the doc, rather we were almost summarizing what was clear and what needed work. I feel that I was able to provide my peer with good feedback, and it was easier compared to the first peer review. 

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For peer review 3 we had a workshop partner and a sheet with questions, but we also read the paper outloud to each other afterwards. I think that this process was most beneficial because my partner and I still shared our docs with each other while the other was reading out loud. The peer review paper helped with global revision, and doc sharing helped with local revisions, and reading out loud helped with both. After having my paper read out loud I removed a lot of sentences and ideas that were repetitive, which was probably the most beneficial part of this peer review process. Although I think I was able to provide decent feedback for all three peer reviews, I definitely received the most helpful feedback on my paper the third time. Although I still can improve on my peer editing abilities, throughout the semester I learned how to peer review more effectively and got more confident in my ability to use transitions, signal words, commas, and write a thesis. Because I had a deeper understanding myself, it then was easier to help other people during peer review too.