Reflect on the peer-review process with you as the reviewer. How did it feel to read and critique someone else’s writing? What did you learn that you can apply to your own writing as you revise your final essay?
When reviewing other people’s writing, I was unsure as to how harsh I was and if I was being equally critical with both papers. Both papers I read were very different in writing style and topic so it was difficult to say how they could improve better technically other than grammar or slight changes to sentence structure. I was also wondering during the review if I was going as in-depth as other people with the reviews. Without a reference, it was hard to know what was wanted by the writer and by the reader for the questions. I would say different papers excelled in different areas for each paper I reviewed.
I was very surprised how different the two papers I read were to mine structurally. The first paper condensed their information from their sources into the majority of the paper, with their opinion on the controversy being the later part of the paper. The second paper had a good mix of their opinion and information from sources throughout the entire paper but the beginning was very slow. It will be interesting as to what the responses from the people who reviewed my paper will be like. I definitely need to bring back my idea to the main controversy more, which the two papers I read had done consistently.
