ACTIVITIES FOR FOCUSED PEER REVIEW

In these materials, adapted from Psychology 225 with Professor Becky Addington, TA Noelle Crooks offers three peer review options that focus on different concerns in students’ drafts: reverse outlining allows a reader to report on their understanding of the author’s writing; the conciseness review enables the writer to focus in on the key writing concern of concision; and the “Author’s Choice” review usefully requires writers to identify the weak areas of their papers – and to let their readers know where they want feedback.

These peer-review activities can be completed separately, at different times of the semester, or they can all be conducted at different times during the drafting process for one paper.

Activity 1: Reverse Outline

Author’s Name _________________ Reviewer’s Name_____________________
Instructions: Clear ideas and clear connections between ideas are critical for a successful paper. As an author, the structure of your paper might be clear to you, but unclear to readers. This activity provides the opportunity to see what the reader is getting out of the paper and whether the key ideas are being communicated effectively.

Create a reverse outline of the paper’s Introduction section. Begin by numbering the paragraphs. For each paragraph, write a one-sentence description of the main idea contained in that paragraph. Number each sentence according to the paragraph it’s describing.

As you are outlining, be sure to note:

• Paragraphs where the main idea is unclear

• Places where the connections between paragraphs are unclear

Activity 2: Conciseness Review

Author’s Name _________________  Reviewer’s Name______________________

Instructions: Effective papers provide enough detail for the reader to understand what’s going on without including extraneous information or words. In this activity, you will evaluate the overall conciseness of the paper. In addition to providing feedback on the draft itself, use the space below to provide a written response for each item.

1. Does the author provide all the essential details while maintaining economy of expression? Are there important details that are missing?

2. Are there sections or sentences that are redundant? Are sentences wordy?

3. What could be cut to make the paper more concise?

4. Are all page and word limits met?

Activity 3: Author’s Choice

Author’s Name _________________ Reviewer’s Name_______________________ Author Instructions: Circle TWO items from the list below that you would like your reviewer to focus on.

Reviewer Instructions: Review in detail the two selected items from the list below. In addition to providing feedback on the draft itself, use the space below to provide a written response for each item. If time allows, feel free to comment on additional sections of the paper.