Rules for writers, Tenth edition - Diana Hacker, Nancy Sommers 2021

Use peer review: Give constructive comments
Revising, editing, and reflecting
A process for writing

✵ How to write helpful peer review comments

✵ Checklist for global revision

✵ How to improve your writing with an editing log

✵ Writing guide: How to write a literacy narrative

To revise is to re-see, and the comments you receive from reviewers — instructors, peers, and writing center tutors — will help you re-see your draft through readers’ eyes. Asking your readers simple questions such as “Do you understand my main idea?” and “Is my draft organized?” will help you revise your draft to clarify and organize your ideas. Writing multiple drafts allows you to write in stages, seek feedback, and strengthen your work through revising and editing.

3a Use peer review: Give constructive comments.

Peer review offers you an opportunity to read the work of your classmates, pose questions and suggestions, and help them see their drafts through your eyes. When you review a peer’s work, you not only help your classmate but also benefit from the process of thinking strategically about revision. As you offer advice about how to strengthen a thesis, for example, or how to use a visual to convey information, you are learning, too, about the purpose of a thesis or about the role of visuals.

HOW TO

Write helpful peer review comments

1. View yourself as a guide, not a judge or an editor.

o Ask questions and propose possibilities instead of dictating solutions. Help your peer identify the strengths of a draft. Try phrasing comments this way: “Have you thought about . . . ?” or “How can you help a reader understand this point?”

2. Pay attention to global issues first.

o Focus on the big picture — purpose, thesis, organization, and evidence — before sentence structure, word choice, and grammar. You might, for instance, offer counterarguments to a peer’s thesis, or you might suggest places where additional evidence would make an argument more persuasive. Use the checklist for global revision on page 42 to help you focus on global issues.

3. Restate the writer’s main idea.

o As a reader, you can help your peer see whether points are expressed clearly. Can you follow the writer’s train of thought? Restate the writer’s thesis and main ideas to check your understanding.

4. Be specific.

o Point to specific places in a draft and show your classmate how, why, and where a draft is effective or confusing. Instead of saying “I like your introduction,” say exactly what you like: “You use a surprising statistic in your introduction, and it really hooks me as a reader.” Always end your peer review session with specific recommendations for revising.