Peer Review Recap, Part 2

I found the peer review process much easier and more enjoyable this time around. I like using Wikis far more than Google Docs, first of all, so that helped.

The #1 thing that made the process better this time is that I familiarized myself with the website before the time to actually review people's papers came. This meant that when it came time to start reviewing I knew what I was doing and could get to work.

I also put some extra work into my first draft this time around. Last peer review, my first draft was of lower quality and prevented me from getting lots of good feedback.

My major problem with the review this time around is that only one person (as of today) reviewed my paper. I was hoping for more feedback.

I must say, however, that Liz's feedback was very helpful and will make my final draft much easier. Her help with my citations was especially helpful because I am terrible with citations. In my major (Journalism) we don't use citations in articles, so I am trying to remember how to use them this semester. It was nice to have somebody who knew what they were doing in that regard helping me out.

So I guess what I'm saying is that if only one person was going to look at my paper, I am glad it was someone who could be really helpful.

Strunk and White: First Impressions

The first rule that really jumped out at me was the one about forming the possessive singular with 's. I was interested that they made it clear that it doesn't matter what the last consonant of the word is. While I somewhat knew this to be true, it still always bothers me when I write something that ends in an s but needs to be possessive. It just doesn't seem right to me, so I am glad that it was reinforced in Strunk and White.

The other part that I found interesting was about putting statements in positive form. This is something that I tend to do in my writing, but never really realized I was doing it. I think that the reason that I often write this way is because I read a lot and see it done that way. It was interesting to see why that was is best. The examples, especially the one about The Taming of the Shrew, were very helpful in allowing me to understand the rule.

The fifth chapter was the one I found easiest for me to read. I really liked the tips that it gave, such as "Write in a way that comes naturally." These are the types of things that I love about writing because they are what really makes one person's writing different from another. "Place yourself in the background," was another interesting tip. I have talked to journalists before about how they found their voice, and they said basically what the book says. To focus on getting your language use very fluid and you will find your voice.

Peer Review Recap, Part 1

This is late, but we didn't get our peer reviewing done until late, so I hadn't had time to write anything up yet.

The peer review process was a bit rocky in my group. Technical difficulties kind of put me off task for a bit. Once I was finally ready to get to reviewing, I found I had not been invited by many of my group members to review their papers. I enjoyed reviewing the ones that I could because it let me help people a bit (which I enjoyed) and it also gave me a chance to see what other people were doing with their project.

I thought that the peer review comments on my paper were extremely helpful. When I wrote my first draft I was in a bit of an avalanche of school work, so I didn't spend as much time as I would have liked on the draft. My group members were very quick to help me with a few sentences where it was obvious I hadn't put my full effort into writing. There were several choppy sentences that I wasn't seeing the problems with until my group pointed them out.

I really liked this exercise, and am excited to do it again (hopefully more successfully) so I can really write some better essays later in the semester.