Peer Review Advice from Peerceptiv!

Be a good reviewer

• There are three phases to Peerceptiv –

• 1.Upload your work product.
• 2.Make reviews on the work of your peers.
• 3.Read the reviews on your work product and back-evaluate each review for helpfulness and specificity.

• Follow the instructions and prompts on the main Peerceptiv dashboard on when to perform each task. Perform all required reviews as soon as they are available, and complete before the deadline. Part of your grade is determined by performing all the steps in the process.

• Reviews in Peerceptiv are offered in the form of Commenting Prompts (qualitative feedback) and Rating Prompts (quantitative scoring), broken down into specific dimensions assigned by your instructor.

• Be nice

• Mention the strengths of the paper, so peers know where they succeeded.
• You are trying to help your peers improve their work, not evaluate them as a person.

• Be constructive

• Give particular ideas for how to improve the work product.
• Don’t just complain about a problem; offer possible solutions for how to fix it.

• Be specific

• Follow the rubrics given to you by your instructor for each dimension.
• Be precise about where particular problems occur.
• Give examples.
• If there were some common problems at the basic writing level (spelling/grammar, poor word choice, awkward sentence structures), please describe the type of problem including the location of one instance.

• Be open-minded about style

• Unless instructed otherwise, there is no one way for each paper to be written. For example, the paper doesn’t have to be formal or informal.
• Ask yourself: did you understand the paper, did you believe the argument, and did you learn something? If you say yes to all three, then the paper should be evaluated as good.

• Remember, you are being graded on your reviewing

• Your quantitative ratings are graded according to accuracy. If your peers feel a particular dimension on a work product is good and you grade it harshly, you will be penalized.
• Your commenting feedback is back-evaluated (graded) by authors on helpfulness and specificity – how much did your comments help them improve the work product? Harshly criticizing the writer will only result in a low helpfulness grade.

• Consider what aspects of your own work you want to improve

• What aspect of your own writing can improve as a result of your reviews?
• What can you take away from each review that allows you to become a better writer?