Monday, February 13, 2012

The Wild and Wonderful Thoughts on Peer-Review


Over the past few classes in English we have been reading, talking, and practicing our peer-review processes. When Ms. Wright announced that we would be learning about peer-reviews in class I immediately sighed in disgust. I always assumed I knew everything there was to know about peer-reviewing my classmate’s papers and essays. All you had to do was write down where they made spelling and grammar mistakes, right? After our lesson in previous classes I learned how wrong I really was. Peer-review is more about reading their paper and commenting on what you liked, what you would change, and what confused you.

                I hated how much work it took to review other people’s papers but reviewing is much easier after you read the paper a second time. I despise rereading anything so I knew that wouldn’t work well with me. After attempting to read the paper once and write my review, I realized how shitty my comments were.  Sadly, I had to suck it up and reread the papers I was reviewing for Thursday’s class. It turned out to not be that bad reading it a second time around and I realized that my comments were much more in depth than they were originally. I felt it was extremely odd that I became to enjoy rereading papers and writing my reviews on them. I started off hating the entire peer-review process and now ultimately I find it somewhat entertaining. I guess I learned not to “judge a book by its cover.”

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