PEER REVIEW instructions for the 5p draft, 11/13/2020

Setting up in your group

• Everyone should upload a google document version of the 5p draft to the class google drive at https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/0AL7RTuOviitUUk9PVA
• Open up the shared google docs from the other members of the group. Make sure that the commenting function in the blue box on the upper right is set to “suggesting.” This will make sure that any edit you make will be marked with your name as the contributor. It’s really important that you not have it in “editing” mode which makes changes without marking them.
• Have a brief discussion with each other about where each of you is at with your draft, what you feel is working well, what is missing so far, and where you’d like to go next with the writing.
• Then begin reading and commenting on the other students’ drafts, following the questions below.
• I will give people credit for completing the peer reviews, so leave everything in the google drive so I can record them.

Completing the peer review

The feedback you give to each other should be encouraging and constructive at this early stage. When you look at someone else’s draft, please consider and write comments about the following points either on the draft or on a separate sheet of paper:

Provisional Thesis

• Is there a specific thesis statement? Does the thesis zoom in on a particular topic related to the class and make a complex, argumentative claim? If not, does it generalize? Is the thesis so broad that it would be difficult to dispute? If the thesis is missing, how can the student begin to formulate it?
• Is the thesis analytic? Does it propose a specific interpretation of a cultural object (film, novel, etc.), a social process, or historical event? Or does it summarize information rather than analyzing it?
• Does the thesis make clear the larger importance of the object of study? What’s at stake?
• Does the thesis list different points rather than integrating them into an argument? If so, is there a way to make a broader claim that encompasses them all?
• Remember that the thesis may be multiple sentences in length.

Research

• Are there primary sources that allow the student to successfully analyze the object of the research?
• Is the secondary academic research presented so far sufficient to analyzing the object or primary sources? Are there cases where a resource being used is weak or conflicts with the framework readings we have explored in class?
• Do you have any suggestions of further materials that could be useful?

Structure

• Do you think that the current draft has too much or too little detail on specific parts of the paper?
• Can you see how the claims from these sections will support the thesis and complement, but not repeat, other sections?
• Mark paragraphs that stray from the thesis or suggest reordering if needed.
• Is there a lot of summary/description when there should be more argument and transition?

Grammar and Style

• Feel free to mark or change any minor spelling, grammar, and style errors.