Blog Post 3

From these posts I learned that peer editing is a lot more work that it appears to be! You have many things to remember when helping someone with an assignment. You must remember to first compliment that person's work. They worked hard on the assignment, don't tear them down just because they made some mistakes. Let them know that their work is good, they just need to fix some mistakes. Instead of telling them to make a sentence better or change their word choice, help them by making suggestions. Remind them of organization of their sentences, focus on detail and let them know if they are straying away from their topic. Also, be kind with corrections and help them out. They may not have seen the mistake or they may just have no idea how to spell the certain word. Don't say "you spelled this wrong". Say "This sentence is very good, but you need to fix [insert word here]".

"Writing Peer Review Top 10 Mistakes" showed several different common mistakes that are made by peers when helping someone and also some for when you are the one being helped. I think many people make these mistakes without even realizing it, such as Picky Patty, Whatever William and Off-Topic Oliver. It's very easy to start picking apart someone's assignment without noticing how much you are actually changing. Allow someone to be themselves through their paper and don't try to make changes just because it isn't how you would write it. And of course we all have those days where we just don't care what someone is telling us and days where we just can't focus on our work. Just try to stay focused and positive on those days! Some though are doing these mistakes fully knowing what they are doing, like Mean Margaret and Pushy Paula. Some people just don't know how to correct someone without downgrading them. And many times people get very offended if you don't take their advice. Those people you just have to learn to ignore. And always take criticism with a grain of salt, unlike Defensive Dan. Understand that your peers are just trying to help you out and get a better a grade!


Source: Photo: http://enggroup1.wordpress.com/2012/09/17/peer-editing/