Peer Reviews

Peer reviews have always seemed like a little bit of a joke to me. Typically it has consisted of me trading my paper with someone as uninterested in peer reviews as the rest of the class. Te reason behind this universal apathy towards peer reviews was the content of the reviews. I would give my paper to a students who's comments I was already bracing myself to ignore, if I got around to reading them in the first place. There were some valuable ideas in Kim Jaxon's "One Approach to Guiding Peer Response." First I appreciated the idea of taking the paper home for an extending period of time. This allows actually thought to go into the comments instead of filling reviews with pointless fluff. I was also drawn to the triviality of grammar. I don't want to sit and read about missed comas. If that's the case, I'm not going to read. The most important thing I got out of this paper is raised expectations. Jaxon does a good job making peer reviews sound helpful and almost necessary. Instead of expecting crap for my peer review, I am expecting some quality comments. So now I have to reciprocate and provide thoughtful and insightful comments as well. Hopefully our classes culture regarding peer reviews is changes by the expectations put upon us by this article.