Peer Review

In response to "Two Cheers for Peer Response," I argue that peer review can be effective so long as all peers are at the similar progress in their writing. Naturally, this is a tricky situation because students in an upper-division course may have advanced to their current class, but they are received different grades. This means that the odds of a peer having their work reviewed by a fellow peer whose grades are minimally acceptable to attend that class is 50/50. In other words, simply because students are in the same class does not mean that they are at the same level as the student whose work is under review.


Based on personal experience, I never received constructive criticism from any of my peers. It is not that I disagree with their views, or I was nervous during the session. For example, in 2015, I was told to exchange papers with a classmate. He suggested that I furthered my mention of one of the main points I had in my essay. It turns out that his review did not benefit me as I thought. When I received my graded paper, it turns out that I was so vague with my discussion on online videos that the instructor suggested I narrow my topic. In sum, my problem was not the furthering of my mention, but the problem was that I was too vague. Nonetheless, I believe that peer review benefits students who are of similar status in terms of their education and grasp.


In essence, teachers should assign students to peer review selected students. For example, a student who scored highly on his first essay ought to review the peer who scored significantly low on his. According to the aforementioned article, there are many problems in peer review: lack of a leader, discomfort of criticism, nervousness among peers, to name a few. However, students must, ultimately, value the review of the instructor higher than his peers because the instructor specifies the prompt. Nevertheless, peer review is beneficial because it expands a student's grasp on the subject.