Peer critique on writing


There are many reasons to have students give each other feedback on their writing, but students are likely to require some guidance to give effective peer critique, and coordinating critique requires some planning.

Advantages of peer critique

  • Students learn from seeing effective practices modeled by other students as well as from seeing pitfalls they’d like to avoid.
  • Struggling to understand a peer’s writing emphasizes for students the importance of writing clearly.
  • Writing recommendations for improvement helps students to clarify their own understanding of how to write well.
  • Students often learn from their peers’ comments that their writing isn’t as clear as they think it is. This feedback is often more powerful from a peer than from an instructor.
  • Having students provide critiques may reduce your reading workload. If students review each others’ first drafts, then when you review their second drafts, the quality will have improved somewhat so reading is likely to be faster.
  • Collaborating with peers prepares students for the “real world,” in which those who want feedback must solicit it from peers.

Guiding peer critique

Although peer critique has many benefits, it can be stressful for the students. A respectful atmosphere is important. Here are a few ways to provide guidance:

Logistics

  • If peers don’t yet know each other, giving feedback in person helps them to develop a collegial relationship that ensures respectful feedback. Discussing comments in person also ensures that the comments are understood. Yet it’s difficult to read and respond to a paper “on the spot,” and it’s often helpful to the teacher to have a written record of the critique. These desires conflict.
    • One option is for the peers to talk when papers are distributed for review: each author should describe the kinds of feedback desired. Peers can read and respond to a small part of the paper “on the spot” to begin to develop a collegial relationship. As homework, the critique is completed in written form, and comments are discussed in the following class.
    • Another option if the teacher doesn’t need a written record is for peers to read the paper before class, jotting notes to themselves, and then give feedback in class.
    • If peers have already developed a collegial relationship, then talking in person first is not necessary: the critique may be written outside of class and be discussed in the following class.
    • Conducting critique entirely outside class has been attempted in a large class at MIT. Although the quality of the critiques appeared to instructors to be acceptable, students reported that paper-only critiques were unhelpful.
  • Pairing peers works well, but using groups of three or larger has the advantage that authors can see the degree of consensus about the various comments. In groups, each student should read the papers of all other members of the group so all can participate in the discussion.
  • Students are better at critiquing clarity than correctness, so even when peers are providing comments, you may want to briefly review the papers for correctness.
  • Peer critique is most effective if students have written on different topics: a reader relatively unfamiliar with the content can better assess whether the author communicates clearly.
  • If students read the papers outside of class and then discuss comments in class, plan what you will do if a student’s peer(s) don’t make it to class.
  • When students discuss comments in class, it will be necessary to have a copy of the paper to refer to.
  • The website Calibrate Peer Review (CPR) can facilitate peer rating of writing. Students begin by entering their writing into the CPR interface. Then they see and rate a few sample responses and can calibrate their ratings by comparing against those supplied by their instructor. After the calibration step, peers rate each other’s writing. The text entry interface uses html for formatting. This is a peer rating system, not a peer commenting system.
  • Students can annotate peers’ writing online by using Crocodoc (free).

General resources (not specific to mathematics)