After going through the process of peer review on rough drafts of paper for nine years now, it is easy to come up with an opinion about them. I for one do not like the idea of peer reviews. The majority of the time the teachers are the ones who pair you in groups or with partners. I do not agree with this method of peer review because you may be paired with people you do not know. You may not trust their opinions and you also do not know the quality of their own work. So why would you want someone grading your work and correcting your papers if they cannot do well on their own. Another reason I do not agree with peer reviewing is because of the quality of laziness in some people. While they will answer the questions of the teacher in order to get credit they will not take the time to actually edit your paper. They may mark a few grammar errors but do not change anything nor provide any helpful suggestions, all the while giving you less than an A. If I were to have someone edit my paper it would be someone older and more experienced with writing skills that I know would make revisions and suggestions.WORD COUNT: 215
I always always agreed with you about peer review, so I had to really think through why I employed it when I became a teacher. The reason I do it is because it's very hard for people (me included) to step outside of oneself to see the issues (good and bad) that are in their own work. We get a kind of blindness. So, it's helpful, I think, to have other people read the work before the teacher sees it - even if they are not the best writer. The point is, if you cannot get across your points (even to the not-so-great student), you've probably got more work to do. Second, I really believe that peer review helps in the revision process. It's, literally, re-seeing the paper. When you see the mistakes that other people make, you're often reminded of your own propensity toward such mistakes. It's very easy to think that, once you've printed your paper, it's done done. It almost never is.
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