Peer Review with the Laptop

Today you are going to work with a partner to proofread your partner’s essay.

Before starting, do the following in your own essay:

1. Bold your thesis. (not the entire introductory paragraph, just the thesis idea)

2. Bold the topic sentence in each of your body paragraphs.

Now, trade documents and do the following:

3. Read the essay, and check to see if the topic sentence for each paragraph is directly related to the thesis. If it is not, change the color of the topic sentence to GREEN.

4. If you run into a paragraph that goes on for more than a page, turn the topic sentence GREEN and tell your partner that he/she will need to break this paragraph up into two or more paragraphs, each with a new topic sentence.

5. If you encounter a sentence which is awkward, stringy, or just plain bad, turn it RED.

6. If you encounter a sentence which has a passive verb in it, turn the verb RED.

7. If you encounter a sentence in which there is a word which does not quite fit, turn the word RED.

8. If you encounter a sentence with a punctuation error in it, turn it BLUE. [Do not fix it yourself.)

9. If you encounter an argument that is not supported by evidence from the texts, insert the following comment: DETAIL NEEDED.

10. If you encounter a key assertion in your partner's argument that is not supported by a direct quote from the text, insert the following comment: QUOTE NEEDED.

11. If you encounter a quote or idea that still needs to be cited properly, insert the following comment: MLA CITATION NEEDED.

12. Carefully read the concluding paragraph, and check to see if the thesis has undergone some transformation. (Frequently the thesis in the conclusion is BETTER than the one in the introduction. If that is the case, BOLD IT and yell, “Whoopppeeee!”)

13. Chat with your partner about his/her essay. BE NICE.