Throughout the course of the semester, we did peer reviews for every paper that we worked on. I fell as though this was a good addition to the class, as I was able to get more than one opinion on my paper and it helped me look at my paper and see if from someone else’s perspective. I had a hard time with this as I do not have confidence in myself as a writer so at the beginning of the semester I would just comment on the structure of the paper and pick out the good things they were doing with little to no advice on how to improve their paper. As the semester went on and I realized the importance of the peer review process, I started to change the way I approached each peer review and started to give tips on how my peers could improve their papers. Whether it was enhancing their ideas, maybe giving them some ideas of quotes that would fit well in their paper, or helping them with the organization of their paper to make sure that it helped advance their argument. I tried to make sure that my note at the bottom was well thought out and did not just consist of me telling them the good areas of their paper as I did with my first couple of peer reviews. Although I have made some improvements throughout the semester in terms of peer reviewing, I still have room for improvement especially by being honest with my peers and giving them things to work on.
