Blog Post Three

Peer Editing, one of the many things we, students, would rather not do. Now, why is that? All we are doing is helping another classmate with his/her writing. I think students shy away from peer editing, because they have been misinformed of how to actually do it. In grade school, peer editing consisted of making your peer’s paper bleed with red ink by finding all the mistakes you could. Many of us still hold to the idea that peer editing is when we just show the other person all of their mistakes, and that is exactly why most students do not want to peer edit anymore. Who wants to be a negative Nancy? I do not!

Personally, when peer editing, I always had the problem of being “Jean the Generalizer” described in Writing Peer Review Top 10 Mistakes. I would never be specific enough, and would say, “This does not make sense”. Well, how does that help someone? They have no idea of how to correct it, and I think this is where the skill of being a peer editor comes in. Instead of saying, “this does not make sense.” Instead of being vague, we could say, “If you add more details after this sentence, it would be more clear.” From these provided links, I have learned the three steps to perfect peer editing are:

1. Compliments- Let the writer know how much you enjoyed or agreed with his/her work.
2. Suggestions- Let the writer know what you did not understand, and give them some simple feedback on how to change it.
3. Corrections- Let the writer know the common mistakes you have seen, and offer them some ways to fix them.

While going through all of these steps, we have to remember to
STAY POSITIVE and BE SPECIFIC

In reflection of grading my own peer’s work, these links have really helped me not worry about peer editing and has me excited for it. As for offering suggestions, I think I would publicly make general suggestions. General suggestions would include common errors, or parts of their work I did/did not understand with specific options on how to change it. Privately, if there were many more mistakes, I would offer more specific help by sending them an email with my corrections and specific suggestions, much like Paige discussed in her Blog Post Assignment #12. The key to peer editing is staying positive and complimenting your peer for the things you like or agree with.

After reading Paige Ellis’s Blog Post Assignment #12 and watching What is Peer Editing?, Peer Edit With Perfection Tutorial, and Writing Peer Review Top 10 Mistakes, I now realize that peer editing is very helpful and far from negative. Instead of providing your peer with all their mistakes, you are providing suggestions. From Paige’s blog post, I learned that it is okay to give a peer specific suggestions as long as you are positive with how you say them. Her post cleared the air for me, because giving corrections publicly or privately has always been a question for me. No one wants to discourage someone in his or her writing. In the Peer Edit With Perfection Tutorial, I learned more specific ways to peer edit such as different ways to give specific suggestions. It also enhanced my knowledge on things I already knew, such as looking out for grammar and punctuation mistakes. After watching Writing Peer Review Top 10 Mistakes, I really thought about how I have seen one of these editors almost every year. The video also showed me that I can be a discouraging editor too and made me think of ways I can change that. Overall, these videos were very helpful for me, as a student, to not be apprehensive about peer editing and truly guided my way into becoming a successful peer editor.