Reaction to Peer Review

The peer review did help me with my paper. The comments made by my fellow classmates were very constructive. They certainly were not trying to act nice, which I am extremely thankful for. It is much better when the comments are genuine and blunt, as it is easier to pick out what is incorrect with my essay instead of trying to read between the gentleness. They fixed a variety of issues, from the simple things like formatting issues and missing punctuation, to actual analysis of my ideals. The checklist we used actually helped me a lot, as I knew not only what to look for in other peer’s papers, but to also go through my own paper with it to see what parts I noticed I left out. The checklist of course could not cover everything though, but many of the important details that are commonly left out. For the other corrections that I made to my peers’ papers, I realized later on that I actually made many of the same mistakes in my own paper. Because of that, I ended up editing my paper much better now that I had a good idea of the common mistakes us students tend to make. I was also able to get new ideas from my peers, as I was able to read the sort of analysis and interpretation they had of the essays, and how my approach not only was similar, but also how different it was, and how I could try to approach my paper from a different angle as well. Overall, this peer review did help a lot, not only with the comments they made on my paper, but for myself so I know what to look for in my paper.