Effective Peer Editing Strategies

Why Have Someone Read Your Draft? After you have written a rough draft, it is always a good idea to have someone else look at and evaluate your paper. At the same time, there are several things you can do to edit your paper as well. I have my students do a personal evaluation (Writer's Evaluation) of their paper first, then I have them work in small groups to exchange papers and do a peer review. For the best help from peer editing, do a self-evaluation on your own essay before you hand it to someone else. By doing a writer's evaluation, you help your reader understand what you need help with, and you also get started in the process of thinking about how you will revise your essay. Your thesis or main review statement (should be one sentence). Your topic sentences in each paragraph of the body (which tell what you are judging and what you think about it). Who is your audience?

What do you want your audience to think, do, or feel after they read your essay? What do you feel is weakest about your essay and how do you plan to revise? Ask two questions your peer reviewers can answer. I think it helps to have at least 2-3 people read and edit your paper if you can because different people have different writing strengths. If you don't have a chance to do this in class, use my questions and exercises on your own paper and try exchanging papers with a classmate or friend. Sometimes, there isn't enough time for the reader to answer every question. Instead, ask them to focus on the areas you most want help with, or to give you their best advice for improving your paper. Another way to divide up the editing time is to have each editor do every other question. According to the poll below, a majority of people find peer editing helps most with grammar and spelling errors. Article was created with the help of Essay Freelance Writersversion.

Those sorts of errors are easy to mark on a hard copy, but more difficult and time consuming to explain on a digital copy. So, if possible, you should try to print out your essay so that it is easy for you to see mistakes and for your editor to write comments. However, if you need to exchange papers online, you can use the editing feature of your word processing program, or just have the person put comments in a different color font. What Is A Classification Essay? or main review statement (should be one sentence). Your topic sentences in each paragraph of the body (which tell what you are judging and what you think about it). Who is your audience? What do you want your audience to think, do, or feel after they read your essay? What do What To Avoid In Writing A Research Paper - Technical Writing feel is weakest about your essay and how do you plan to revise?

Ask two questions your readers can answer. I. Read the paper slowly. Mark on the paper any errors in grammar, commas, word choice, spelling or other errors you notice. Look at the answer to the first question on the Writer's Evaluation. Do you think that the paper makes the audience respond the way the writer intended? How could the writer make the paper clearer? Look at the underlined thesis and topic sentences. Do you know how the writer feels about this subject? Are these clear, strongly worded and interesting? How could they be better? Where does the paper need more evidence and/or examples? If you have ideas for what the author could add, then tell them. Does the description of the subject make you able to feel you are there? Where does How To Pass Essay Exam With Flying Colors - Education need to be stronger? Is the paper organized effectively? Is there about 1/3 summary or description and about 2/3 evaluation? Does the author organize it so that it goes from least to most important? How and where can this organization improve? Is the introduction interesting?