ENG 104 -021;040 Ins: Engholm
Unit 2 –Peer Review Exercise
Please follow these steps to complete this workshop.
1. Read through the entire draft in font of you without marking on the essay or this worksheet. Try to enjoy the essay and appreciate what the writer is trying to do.
2. After you finish the essay, record in the space below a few moments, phrases, anecdotes, sources, style choices, etc. that stood out to you—these could stand out in a good way or a bad way:
3. Please reread the introduction carefully considering how it affects you as a reader and how it introduces you to the essay’s subject. (Normally, this is the first paragraph of the essay, but it could be more.)
4. Then address these two questions:
a. Does the introduction attract your attention, entice you to read further, and make you interested? How? How could it be improved?
b. Do you have a sense of the whole essay’s purpose and focus from this introduction and does the introduction feel like a comprehensive preview the entire work?
5. Look back through the essay at the writer’s “topic sentences.” Underline, in each paragraph, sentences that seem like “topic sentences” to you.
6. Then address these two questions:
a. Do these paragraphs seem to building together in a logically progressive order (which means that they could not be arranged in any other way) or are they in a sequence (which means they can be interchanged in some cases)? How could the order be improved? Identify gaps.
b. Do these paragraphs seem to be adequately developed? Are they focused on one united subject, with logical and verbal bridges that build off of their topic sentences?
7. Look back at the essay’s sources. Circle their in-text citations. If there are none where some are needed, please put “MLA?” where citations are needed.
8. Then address these two questions:
a. Does the essay have traditional research to inform the reader and use that research in a successful—not over done—way? Is this essay mostly quotes and sources? And are the sources discussed as well as a quoted/cited?
b. Does the essay make use of the writer’s own individual fieldwork and is that given enough time to really present the experience to the reader? How helpful do you fieldwork?
9. Now look back at the writer’s sentences and style. Double underline phrases, sentences, words, etc. that you enjoyed as a reader.
10. Write on the last page a summary of your impressions, suggestions, and encouragements for the writer.