What do I take away from a peer review exercise?

I haven’t preiously had the opportunity to partake in peer review. Throughout my undergraduate studies, essays were always a solo task and not one that I had the opportunity to consult with my peers about. Now that I have had the opportunity, I have learned more about the advantages of the process and enjoyed the ability to engage with my classmates. 

I thoroughly enjoyed reviewing my peers’ work in order to assist them with changes that could possibly benefit their final draft. I feel as though I had the most to offer in terms of grammatical changes and ensuring that formatting for APA or MLA was completed correctly. I don’t consider myself an expert, so struggled to assist in other ways other than grammar and formatting. In the future, I would hope to help in this way a bit more. However, I do feel that I was able to offer a lot of help through the suggestions that I provided to my peers. 

How did I feel about my peers’ feedback on my papers?

I appreciated receiving feedback from my peers to understand how they interpreted what I was saying. I was provided with helpful feedback that assisted me with making changes to my paper. I appreciated when my peers noticed spelling mistakes or grammatical errors that I missed. I was often suprised that I had missed those errors, but that is the benefit of having a peer reviewer; an extra set of eyes to notice things. I enjoyed receiving feedback from 3 peers, as they all had different suggestions and perceptions of my paper. 

I hope to be able to participate in peer review throughout my graduate education. Allowing students to work with their peers to submit their best possible writing is a great way to have students succeed. It alows people to work together and gain new perspectives to aim to think outside of the box.