Guidelines for Providing Peer Feedback

There are two Phases in providing feedback to your peers. Phase I prepares you to do Phase II

Phase I.

A. Read and go through the paper with the Criteria for Evaluating Arguments and the Criterion-Based Questions in mind. But you are not answering each of the questions separately. Regard the questions or points as guides for your thinking and evaluation process. You received the Criteria for Evaluating Arguments in class and it is part of the notes/overheads from 1/23, posted on the web. You were given the Criterion-Based Questions in Discussion Section several weeks ago.

B. Mark up the student paper for claims, evidence, etc., using small letters in the margins (e.g., a, b, c, etc.) so you can refer back to specific sections of the text when you do Phase II.

Phase II .

Prepare “Feedback to the Author” by addressing three groups of questions:

1. Quality of the Argument Content – Was there one overall claim? Were there subclaims? Were the claims and subclaims clear and were they supported by evidence and examples? Was there a counterargument? Was the evidence relevant to the claim(s) it was supposed to support?

Reference specific parts of the essay that were clear and other parts that were unclear or confusing. Label parts with small letters (e.g., a, b, c, etc.)

2. Quality of the Writing – Was the overall essay well organized and coherent? Did the introduction make the claim clear? Did the body develop the evidence for the claim? Were there a clear sections that were subclaims or counterarguments? Are there loose ends that seem irrelevant to the claims and evidence? Did the paragraph structure match the argument structure?

Reference specific parts of the essay that were clear and other parts that were unclear or confusing. Label parts with small letters (e.g., a, b, c, etc.)

3. Effectiveness of the Language – Was the paper written in an interesting manner – what were some things the author did to make it interesting? Were the sentences clear and readable? Were there parts that were redundant? Were there any specific word usage problems (where you thought a different word would be better than the one the author used)?

Reference specific parts of the essay that were clear and other parts that

were unclear or confusing. Label parts with small letters (e.g., a, b, c, etc.)

Again, you do not answer each question separately but you should construct some text that touches on the issues addressed by each of the four groups of questions. You may want to divide your feedback into the three sections shown above.

You may hand in your Peer Review at the end of discussion Section or you can turn it in during class on Monday, February 11, 2002.