Dealing with Peer Review

Peer Review is a helpful technique used mostly in writing classes where classmates read each other’s papers in order to make corrections and give feedback on what they read. Dealing with someone reading your thoughts and experiences could without a doubt make most people uncomfortable. Here are some ways to deal with peer review. Remember that usually the writer is their own toughest critic, the reviewer is just there to help and probably isn’t judging you by what’s on your paper. Relax during peer review and keep in mind the only reason this is being done is to help you get a better grade. Stay focused and listen to what your reviewer has to say. Make sure their comments get written down so you can incorporate them into your paper. Finally, ask your reviewer to read your paper out loud so you can hear how it sounds when someone else reads it and pick up on where they stumble or get confused. Again peer review is an activity to help you, not put you on the spot so keep an open mind and use the criticism you receive to improve your paper.

Blog Assignment One

It was freshmen year of high school and I was sitting in my third hour typing class. The teacher smelled like cigarettes and looked to be eighty years old. “Log onto your machines” she said, she always called the computers machines. I logged on with the help of my student ID card because I was too lazy and stubborn to memorize the student number on the back of it. We all clicked on the short cut to the typing program and the first thing that popped up was a message welcoming us to the class and stating that our typing would not be timed for the first week of class so we should focus on keeping our eyes on the computer screen and not on the keys. I thought this was funny how were we supposed to know what keys we were hitting if we weren’t supposed to look at the keyboard? I Clicked on lesson one and began typing my eyes going from screen to keyboard every five seconds.

            I continued typing this way ignoring the teacher’s comments that I had to force myself to not look at the keys and let my fingers learn where the letters were located. Soon I realized my classmates were considerably faster than I was at typing. How did they do it? It dawned on me that their eyes stayed on the computer screen while their fingers automatically found the right letters on the keyboard. Wow who knew that was actually possible.

            I passed typing with a C plus that semester which my parents weren’t happy about. Even though I hate to admit it looking back I learned something more important than how to type correctly in my third hour class, I learned that listening to a teacher is usually the best course of action in a class. That sounds lame but at least for me, it’s true