| Peer
Critique Guide: Social Problem Paper(#2)
Before you sit down to complete your
peer critique, make sure that you have the following: a) a printed
out, hard copy of your partner's essay and b) SMG.
Once you have all of those goodies, follow
this sequence:
1) Read over these instructions once
from start to finish before you begin writing your critique.
2) Then open the peer critique form
up in Word: Peer Critique: Word
/ RTF / PDF
3) Now that you have read through the
critique instructions from beginning to end and opened up the
critique form as a Word document, review your notes from our discussion
with your partner in class and make sure you understand what the
writer would most like your help with.
4) Once you have read through your
notes, read through the writer's essay once without commenting
upon it and follow the questions, prompts, and suggestions in
the sections below as you write your critique.
Remember the "constructive criticism"
strategies we reviewed earlier in this course: 1) praising specific
elements of the essay you are critiquing, 2) offering suggestions
for the areas of the paper that you view as weaker or needing development,
3) asking questions to help the writer see what a reader might not
understand, and 4) making specific suggestions whenever possible.
You will find that the more carefully you work on this critique
assignment, the stronger you own understanding of the assignment
will become.
Answer or respond to the guiding comments
for each of the areas below in your critique of your partner's essay.
1. Read for First Impression:
Tell the writer what you think the intended readers would find
most and least convincing about this description of a social problem..
Has the writer convinced you that the essay examines and important
social problem? If so, how? If not, why not? Finally, if one of
the issues the writer asked you to discuss is not listed below,
discuss that issue here.
2. Assess the thesis:
Underline the thesis in the draft. It should be the first sentence
of the paper. Does the thesis achieve the two requirements: 1)
Does the thesis identify the problem, and 2) Does the thesis explain
the problems social significance. The thesis should, in effect,
outline the paper. Does this sentence do that? Do the topic sentences
and paragraphs that follow the thesis in the essay correspond
to the order and logic of the thesis sentence?
3. Evaluate the topic sentences
(aspects of the social problem's significance) in the paper:
Underline the topic sentence, the sentence stating the significance
of the problem that the rest of the paragraph is designed to demonstrate.
Does these sentences have a direct relationship to the thesis
of the paper? Does each paragraph focus on one and only one aspect
of the social problem's significance? Point out examples where
this seems to be done correctly as well as places where the author
might want to rework the topic sentences.
4. Evaluate the use of support
in the body paragraphs: Does each paragraph focus on
one element of support (one anecdote, one statistic, one example,
one authority, etc.)? If not do the multiple forms of support
all belong together in one paragraph? Do they all support the
topic sentence? Identify strong and weak examples for the writer.
4. Evaluate the quality of
research: Does the writer have enough sources to write
future essays that will examine the possible causes of the problem
and propose a solution to the problem.? Point out strengths and
weaknesses of the research. If the descriptions of the sources
do not give you a good enough sense of how useful the research
will be, point out places where more information would have helped
you better make this assessment. Are all of the in-text citations
correctly formatted (see SMG Chapter 22 pages 703-706
for details of correct in-text citation format)
5. Closely examine the format
of each entry and the bibliography as a whole: Does the
writer correctly label the bibliography (the title "Works
Cited" or "Annotated Bibliography" will work).
Is the title in plain text. Are there no extra lines inserted
between the title and the body of the bibliography. Are entries
double-spaced and indented? Does each entry present the information
in the required order and correct form, corresponding exactly
the requirements explained in SMG? Is all the punctuation correct?
For a sample "Works Cited"
page, see SMG pages 734-735
You can also view on-line examples
of correctly formatted papers and bibliographies at the following
links:
A sample MLA formatted humanities essay: http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/modeldocs/humanities.htm
A sample MLA formatted essay with MLA documentation
requirements guidance: http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/humanities/sample.html
For correct information on how to format
each type of entry, see SMG Chapter 22 pages
707-717.
7. Give the Writer Your Final
Thoughts: What is this draft's strongest part? What part
is most in need of further work?
When you have completed your peer critique,
attach the Word document to an email and send that email to the
writer and to me. Also BRING A HARD COPY OR YOUR PEER CRITIQUE
TO CLASS.
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Page last updated:
16 February, 2004
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