Peer Review Blog

The first peer review I was assigned on is an essay about lions. The essay first discussed about lions being the dominant apex predator. It covers details about lions being social animals and are proven to be highly conscious and have high intelligence. It then discussed about problems that lions face, which are population decrease due to illegal hunting, and when they disappear, the whole ecosystem would be damaged and other species would reproduce out of control. First, I noticed that this essay does not have a proper title, which its current title is "Big Three Literature Review". I suggested him to change a title and make it attractive. The literature review part includes too many quotations rather than paraphrasing and summarizing, which some of them are too long. I suggest him to change some of the quotations to paraphrasing and summarizing by himself. The best advice I gave is to suggest changing his problem section. He only used two paragraphs focusing on problems lions face, and he kinds of combines sources in one paragraph. In comparison to his literature review part, this part seems to be underdeveloped. I suggested him to instead separate this part to three different paragraphs and include more detail about each of his problem sources.

The second peer review partner I was assigned to did not submit a draft so there is no way for me to review it (he did not submit for the LR part also). Since I cannot review the draft of my second partner, I decide to talk about the improvements my first partner made through the two drafts. In the LR submit, his essay was really broad, which he only had one paragraph for each source, and the word count clearly did not exceed minimum requirement. He had an introduction that is relatively good, but only a few quotations to the sources were included in his reviewing part. The second draft was dramatically improved. His LR part is very detailed, and at least three citations were included for each source. He also made the word choice more academic and convincing. Two paragraphs were assigned to each source, and the connection between each source was clear.

We have been commenting on others' works throughout this quarter. Assignments from first few weeks were more about commenting on others' opinions. I think it's interesting that I can learn about how others may think differently on some particular topics than me. I remember receiving some really good advices like not to use quotations to start an essay. That is something I thought was good to have.

I think peer review can help me learn about things that I was doing wrong in the past, and about mistakes others made that I can keep in mind as a reminder not to make same mistakes myself in the future. It is helpful that I can see how others view my work, and can find out parts that I am lack of practicing. Since I have the idea of my essay in mind, I may not be able to find parts I am not explaining well. However, by peer reviewing, I can receive comments from people that don't know about my essay, which can help me explain things better in revision. I agree that "to give is better than receive". By reading others' essay, I can practice my skills as well. When I'm giving others advices, that means I'm not just reading, but understanding what is good for an essay. When I read others' essays, I sometimes find some good word choices or structures that I can use in my essay as well. I definitely learned a lot by reviewing others' works.