What's the Point of WEx?
Now that we've gotten a little practice working with the Writers'
Exchange or WEx, let's talk about why it's such a useful learning tool.
(If you need a refresher on what WEx is, check out the WEx Guide pt. 1
and pt. 2 and the WEx infographic in the Week Four module).
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| Peer Review Time! |
"Peer Review." When I say those two simple words in my in-person
courses, I watch a collective shudder run through the classroom, as if
I'd just asked them all to watch
The Ring video. Believe me, I
get it. I've been in truly terrible peer review groups before. Sometimes
people are too polite and just tell you that your paper is great, and
you'll definitely get an A (and then don't, and you want to tear your
hair out). Or you'll have that one person who tears your work apart like
they want nothing more than to see you weep, but they don't offer
anything beyond insults. And it can be hard to be the person giving
feedback You have this whole essay in front of you, and you might not
know where to begin in terms of giving the writer helpful suggestions
for making their paper better.
WEx is an elevated form of peer review. In other words, it's designed to
provide you with enough structure and direction that everyone gets
something out of it. There is a misconception about peer review. A lot
of people think it's about getting feedback which takes the place of
instructor comments. But that's not what peer review or WEx is all
about. Yes, you should get a healthy amount of feedback if the students
reviewing your draft do a good job.
BUT, what WEx/peer review is really about is learning how to break down a
text and figure out how to make it better. When you evaluate another
student's work using the WEx criteria, you are training yourself to
revise your own work more effectively.
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| This could be you! |
As you move on after English 1110.01, you will have to write a lot of
papers for other classes. You probably won't have the advantage of peer
review, and being able to work on the same project throughout the whole
semester, getting instructor feedback along the way. If you have the
experience pinpointing an essay's weakness and looking for ways to
improve it, you'll be able to revise your work using those skills you
developed in WEx.
Post either one original comment relating to one or more of the questions below OR respond to two other students below.
What worries you about WEX? What have your past experiences with peer
review been, good or bad? What does your revision process look like now
(how many drafts do you write, do you have anyone look over your essays,
etc.)?
Several things worry me about WEX. I did not quite get where I was supposed to apply the "describe-assess-suggest" concept the first few times I read through the guides. After asking for clarification, I knew what I had to do to fix in my reviews. I know I'm not the only one who didn't understand right away, because the reviews I got back on the learning assignment were lacking to say the least. As Professor Romines mentioned in this post, I had one person give me a lot of compliments but no actual feedback. If the learning assignment had been something I actually wrote, I would have been very frustrated that I did not receive a critique I could work with and expand on. I understand the point of the "describe-assess-suggest" format, but I also feel that you end up really reaching for material. Sometimes there just isn't enough content to pull from to fully utilize the process. It challenges you to think outside the box, but it only works if the person who wrote the essay provided you with good content to start with. It really is a give and take.
ReplyDeleteI have had a mix of good and bad reviews in the past. Most of the time in-person peer reviews seem to swing wildly from "your paper is awful, burn it" to "you'll get an A, don't change a thing." I'm worried that WEX will perpetuate these reviews despite the template that was provided to us. However, I am hoping that this will not be the case, and that we will all learn something from this last assignment.
Getting weak/unhelpful feedback is definitely a (frustrating) possibility, especially since WEx is a collaboration between ALL sections of English 1110 online, including those taught by other instructors who might not be really focusing on reminding students about the importance of detailed review responses using the "describe, assess, suggest" method.That's why it can be helpful to frame WEx in terms of building your own revision skills. Assessing the essays of other will help you see weak areas in your own essay.
DeleteA few things worry me about WEx. As someone who does not think they are the greatest writer, I feel as if I am not always in the best position to thoroughly judge the work of others. I also feel like having guidelines like the describe, assess, and suggest can cause other students to focus only on fulfilling those requirements rather than giving a more genuine review. Although, my past peer reviews have been exactly how you described, either too nice or far too critical/insulting, so I also think the guidelines will helpful in eliminating this. Overall, I think I have already learned what can make a review good or bad from the sample WEx assignments, and I think I will be able to apply this to future reviews.
ReplyDeleteBryan Hagedorn
Yeah, peer review can be a mixed bag in terms of results, but hopefully our WEx structure will help.
DeleteI am definitely worried about doing a peer review. For one thing, I am obviously not a professional writer. I worry that I am not qualified to give people comments on their writing and also what if I give them bad advice? I may think something is a good idea when in fact it is actually the last thing they should do.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing I'm worried about is hurting anyone's feelings. I don't want anyone to think that I feel their writing is terrible and hard to read. I don't like telling other people what they should change in cause it makes them upset because they really liked the way they had it.
Overall I hope that I can give people good advice for their papers that will help them create an even stronger piece of writing.
I 100% agree with what you are worrying about. As a people pleaser, I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings when peer reviewing their papers. It's a little uncomfortable for me to tell people what I may think is wrong with their writing.
DeleteIt's really common for peer reviewers to feel 1. unqualified and 2. scared of hurting the feelings of others, but remember, it's called PEER review for a reason. Everyone is learning together and building their skills as we move through the process. Hopefully the structure (describe, assess, suggest) will help take some of the emotion out of the process. You're just moving through the parameters like everyone else, not making value judgments.
DeleteThe things worry me about the WEx is that there are three criteria but I think the "describe-assess-suggest" concept is used for one peer review. It's different from the class I took before, because we just put one peer review for one paper. After the first assignment, I think I will familiar with WEx better in the future. However, I need to see that it's a good tool to help us. You have enough time to write your review and can give some more structure suggestions.
ReplyDeleteYeah, WEx is definitely a very specific, unique type of peer review, but I think students find they learn a lot from the process.
DeleteI like peer review, but I do worry about peer review. I mean, receiving peer reviews is great because I will get more terrific advices to make my paper better. However, giving others reviews can be tough because the concept of "describe-assess-suggest" is a little vague to me. I had done peer review before, but that was simply about giving suggestions. That review process was great because my classmate told me a couple of problems that I didn't see myself. This time, since the review will be more specific, I think the outcome will be even better.
ReplyDeleteMake sure to take another look at the WEx Guide Pt. 1 which goes into detail about "describe, assess, suggest," if that's still feeling vague to you.
DeleteI personally have never had effective peer reviews throughout high school for the reason that me and my close friends would review each other and not put much thought into the process. Though this was fine in high school, I think it will be the opposite situation in this class. I was actually very impressed with how the WEx system works. I think it was cool to see a system in place where we can go through the whole review process without ever leaving the computer screen. A worry from that however is the time away from the person reviewing your response, you don't physically get to talk to them so there could be some gap in communication.
ReplyDeleteI was the same way in high school too. I never went to anyone else but my friends to review my papers so that I wouldn't have to reach out to someone that I wasn't comfortable with. It'll be a little awkward at first to let someone review my writing, but with time and practice I think it'll positively affect us.
DeleteOh yes, I've been in the "buddy" peer review groups and not a lot gets accomplished, but everyone has a good time, haha!
DeleteMy main concern is that I have never excelled at English, mainly writing, so whenever I was asked to review a paper it made me nervous that I was going to give bad advice or just wasn't a strong enough writer to provide useful feed back. Another thing I'm not a huge fan of is the windows that everything has to be done in, I mean if someone put it off and just wants there points, and they get my paper the review isn't going to be any good. I've never had much of an issue with peer review, but I think that is in large part to me knowing that my paper needed work, so if someone was too nice I knew there was no way that review could be accurate, and if it was over the top I usually just rolled with it and fixed the things that I agreed needed fixed. My writing process varies from paper to paper, as some times I feel that I only need one draft because that first one is good to go after some revisions, but other times I've written three or four separate drafts before finally being happy with the paper.
ReplyDeletePeer review can definitely be frustrating since not all students are at the same skill level and not all students are putting the same time and effort into their reviews. Thinking of WEx as a step in your writing process and learning how to apply those some revision methods to your own work helps with the frustration a little.
DeleteOne of the major things that worries me about WEx is that I will not provide enough helpful information to further the other persons writing and aid them to have a fantastic paper. I am concerned that I will not give enough critical advice to one of my peers paper because in my opinion, it is difficult to critique others writing. In high school, I had pretty successful peer reviews because they were a bit structured, just like WEx is with the describe, assess, and suggest method. When I write a paper, I like to bullet point some ideas and create a small outline before I start typing. This way, I have a clear idea of what I want my paper to look like and the ideas I want to state in it. After I have written the paper, I usually have someone in my family or a friend read it and give me advice on what I should fix or work on. I believe that having others look at it helps improve your writing and sometimes others find mistakes that you wouldn't of even noticed. Also, I usually only write one draft and just revise and perfect that one paper.
ReplyDeleteSounds like WEx will be a good fit for the type of methodology you've already been using. Structure can be really helpful.
DeleteOne of the things that concerns me about wex is that I don't know how great my review would be and how helpful it would be to the writer. I tend to struggle with peer reviews and don't know if I'm well qualified to do so. I have had bad peer review experiences in the past and therefore don't really like them. Some people are very harsh, however some people also do a very good job. Sometimes if I want to analyze or criticize part of someone's work I don't understand the best way to approach the situation and make the review not sound like I am picking and or judging their work. My goal would be to make the review as professional and informative as I can, so that the writer can make their piece better with my constructive criticism. When it comes to my writing process i definitely write multiple drafts before I have a final paper. I value feedback and always want a way to improve my paper. Therefore sometimes I struggle with finalizing the final draft because I always think theres something that could be done to make it better.
ReplyDeleteWorrying about the quality of your reviews seems to be a common theme, so you're in good company!
DeleteIn the past I've had a mix of good and bad peer reviews. One thing that frustrates me the most is when I don't get any feedback because I know my paper is not perfect and want good feedback to make it as good as it can be. However, I've had some really good peer reviews that have made my paper strong. The feedback helped me get my point across in a very efficient way.
ReplyDeleteFor my revision process, I start by writing my first draft just to get my idea on paper. Then, I go back through it and add, delete, and clarify parts. After, I ask someone to review it, and taking their feedback I fix my paper. Next, I ask for another peer review and I take their feedback into consideration and fix m paper again. Lastly, I look over it one last time.
Hopefully with all the criteria + describe, assess, suggest, you'll get some helpful reviews.
DeleteAs of now, what worries me the most about WEx is not being able to give useful comments to fellow students.
ReplyDeleteIn my past experience, peer review is a mixed bag of good and bad. I have had bad reviews where I knew there are issues that needs to be noted but the reviewer simply glancing over my paper and told me that "it looks good". on the other hand, I have also had experiences where fellow students marked up my paper completely and noted issues that I would have never been able to identify by myself.
My current revision process consists of me writing a rough draft and a final draft. I will write the rough draft a few days before the due date of the final draft and continuously revising the rough draft with a fresh set of eyes everyday until the final draft is due.
"Mixed bag" is the perfect way to describe peer review!
DeleteRight now, my worries about WEx is that I won't be able to get the other writer the information needed to get a good grade on the paper because I don't consider myself a great writer and I haven't had a great past with grades on my papers.
ReplyDeleteIn the past, my experience with peer review has been not so great. I have only gotten back either not enough feedback because they are just trying to get it done fast and don't show any care if I get a good grade or a bad grade. I would have loved to get too much feedback then too little.
My revision process now is to write the rough draft and have someone read it so I can fix any mistakes I looked past. Then I look over it once more before the due date so I can make sure everything is okay.
I love getting lots of feedback, too. Hopefully with the structure of WEx, that's what you'll get.
DeleteWhat concerns me the most about WeX is technical glitches. I think in order for me to avoid these problems, I will have to submit my papers as soon as I can. Other potential issues that worry me are if my peers think I am being too harsh or if they think that I am not giving enough feedback to them.
ReplyDeleteI have not done a peer review in about four years, so I cannot really remember how they went. Since I was in my sophomore year of high school, I believe it probably went along the lines of my classmates and friends telling me my paper looked great.
My current revision process is me wondering whether I should move a paragraph or if I repeated a word too much. I usually write three drafts and have at least two of my friends read over them.
-Sierra Vahalik
Yeah, WEx is a newer program so glitches can happen. Make sure you contact me if that happens, and we'll figure something out. Glitches are different than missing a deadline.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI am concerned about the describe-assess-suggest part. Yes, I totally agree that it is a good guid to help us analyze other's article. However, I am afraid of if, since the criteria is a little bit complicated, I do not follow the whole criteria of describe-assess-suggest, it will hurt my grades about the peer review part.
ReplyDeleteAccording to my peer review experience, I find a interesting situation. My peer just pointed out my grammar mistakes in article or they just said my article has no problems but actually I can felt that they even did not take a time to read my article carefully. Some peer do not want to disturb your logic in the article, so they would not like to point out some problems which Wex requires to point.
My revision process is divided by three steps. First, I think about the topic and statements that I want to discuss and construct a syllabus for making sure every opinion is clear. Second, I write a rough draft and carefully check the grammar. Third, I will email the instructor and ask for giving any suggestions about my article.
The important part to remember on the reviews is to be thorough and helpful. If you don't exactly hit all the points of describe-assess-suggest but you provide a healthy chunk of useful feedback, that's okay too.
DeleteMy biggest issue with the Wex modules is the strict format it entails. Although I see how this can be useful for a lot of students who are not comfortable giving feedback, I have always enjoyed doing peer reviews and give thorough feedback. I am worried this setup will limit my ability to make comments like I am used to, especially when it comes to editing mistakes or making suggestions on specific sentences. However, I am open to trying the new setup. I think it would be awesome if we were able to make direct comments on the text to edit, such as crossing out unrequired words, correcting spelling mistakes, and providing word substitutes to provide clarity. I've always been very comfortable with peer reviews and am able to distiguish good comments from bad ones.
ReplyDeleteYeah, WEx isn't really designed for line edits. The process is more about the content feedback. I know it's a bummer for grammar/sentence structure gurus.
DeleteI am kind of worried when it comes to following the describe-assess-suggest part of the WEx review process but I think that if I break it into those three parts and tackle each part individually rather than trying to hit all three parts at one time I'll be fine. What also worries me about the describe-assess-suggest process is that I'll be so focused on meeting those goals that I won't critique their paper enough.
ReplyDeleteIn the past I've had a couple of bad experiences with peer review because of reviewers who don't seem to care about the final outcome of my paper. Hopefully this problem will be remedied through the multiple review process.
Yep, breaking down each aspect is a good idea!
DeleteHonestly, I really like WEx. The only concern I can think of is if the people reviewing one of my papers doesn't actually review it and lets the time run out. I, personally, would like all the feedback I can get, because I don't consider myself a very good writer.
ReplyDeleteMost of my peer reviews haven't been that good. Usually, I would only get corrected on grammar and spelling, but never on the actual structure or content of the paper they were reviewing. The only time I had a good peer review on a paper I wrote was when I asked my English teacher in high school to review my college essays.
Woohoo! We've got an early WEx fan! If someone lets the time run out on your paper before reviewing it, it gets thrown back into the pool to be reassigned. Students usually receive between 2-4 reviews.
DeleteI am very confused about the "describe-assess-suggest" concept at the first time, but after using the web once, I am sort of understand it. My concern is that I do not think that all people will revise my essay patiently. Besides, I do not know that the feedback I get is professional or not. Sometimes the suggestion may make my essay worse. I had peer review before in my high school. I don not really prefer it, cause my peer's writing skill is certainly not good enough to revise my writing. I did not see any profit on letting a non-pro to revise my essay. I gave out two drafts and received two.
ReplyDeleteThe feedback definitely will be peer feedback not professional. If you're looking for expert help, I can answer any questions you have or you can make a Writing Center appointment to talk through your paper with a professional tutor.
DeleteI am afraid that I could not give a great reviews for others. I am always confused by finding others shortcoming when I thought the article was well. I did not have good experiences with peer reviews. Sometimes, I was shy to give peer reviews especially I knew the writer. So I would balance how to give advice and make people feel not bad. In the writing course which I am learning, I have written maybe 2 drafts. I am not sure how many see my essays. The process is continuous right now. Hope the revision goes smoothly.
ReplyDeleteJingya Wang(wang.9443)
Hopefully the specific criteria that you'll need to evaluate will help.
DeleteI am afraid I didn't get the how to write review and reflections on the Wex website at first. It might get confused to students who haven't use this website before about what I should response and where I should summit. The peer review session is important in future study and I hope there can be more specific directions about that.
ReplyDeleteI think I haven't finished a complete draft yet, but I have a topic in mind and still work on finding more resources to analyse.
Keren Shi (Shi.1047)
WEx can be tricky at first, which is why we did the Learning cycle, but feel free to email me with any other questions you might have.
DeleteI have been known and experienced peer review more than one years. But I am worried the steps of review a lot, sometime I would mix up the process. During the first year in OSU, I wrote several drafts, and some of them were reviewed by my peers. It is a good thing to let others to look over you drafts, because people themselves will always miss their mistakes like grammar and spelling. Those mistakes are obvious to others. Now, after I write my draft, I will ask my roommate to read twice. He will help me to find the basic problem. It is my first step of revision. Then, I will focus on my concept or theme of the draft. According to the requirement, I will read my draft several times to make sure my draft covered all the material and reequipment .
ReplyDeleteWEx has all the different criteria listed in different text boxes, so it should be pretty clear to follow.
DeleteHonestly speaking, I felt a little bit confused about WEX. The“describe-assess-suggest” is an entirely new concept to me. Also, it’s quite difficult for me to give my peers suggestions. I’m afraid if my reviews are helpful enough to let my peers revise their papers into greater works. I’ve done peer review before, but what I did is pretty simple. I just give some suggestions to my peers and few sentences to describe how to improve. Through the discussions of different opinions on one subject matter, I enjoy sharing my ideas and absorbing others’ to improve my paper. I felt like I have good experiences with peer review.
ReplyDeleteAbout my revision process, I always look at specific parts which my peer pointed out, and then I will look through the whole paragraph to adjust the length, to keep structural balance in my paper.
WEx is a program unique to OSU English so everyone is in the same boat.
DeleteIn my opinion, I think that WEX is a good way to improve our writing skill and review skill. In a peer review, a classmate's ideas could be more creative and in a way of people in same age. Professor may give the opinion with professional suggestion. Besides, when I review other's paper, I can think about if I have the same problem with it and can improve later. The point I am a little worry about is that some peer review could be misleading and the writer should determine which is a good suggestion and which is unnecessary.
ReplyDeleteYes! Peer review can be so helpful for seeing weaknesses in your own paper.
DeleteThe WEX learning system is a really great tool to help us classmates to review the papers each other and give some own thoughts and suggestions. Before I got touched with this system, I have done some peer reviews, but we just like the article said that politely commenting your paper is great without any helpful suggestions. What WEX impressed me is that we can break down this process and know what we have to give in each part. I believe that it will help us a lot during this class.
ReplyDeleteYes, we're shooting for polite while also being useful.
DeleteOne of the things that concerns me about wex is that I cannot give those suggestion about the paper professional. As an international students, I am poorly done on the English, so it is difficult for me to criteria on peers' assignments. Last semester, I had another English course, and I also did some peer reviews, in general, I always remedy some grammar mistakes for my classmates. Another thing that worried me about Wex is that there are three different classmates would do the criteria for me, and if their opinion are not consistent, which one should I believe. Actually, I am willing to share my idea with others and hoping we can help each others to improve the quality of papers.
ReplyDeleteWEx is asking you to evaluate content rather than sentence level errors, so that should ease your mind a bit. Also, when you get conflicting feedback, that's the perfect time to email your teacher for help!
DeleteMy biggest concern is giving correct and through reviews for other papers. I struggle with English. I always have. So, when I read the papers of others if the mistakes aren’t clear to me I miss them. I also am afraid that when I am reviewing the paper of ohers that I won’t explain things in a way understandable to the author. I don’t have much experience with peer reviews. I don’t feel that my high school English classes gave me a proper foundation. My revision process consists of typing my paper up, and reading over my work out loud a couple of times. I look forward to being able to have other students revise my paper on WEX.
ReplyDeleteMy high school English classes weren't super useful either. Plenty of time to learn! I'm still learning! Also, reading your work aloud is a GREAT way to catch sentence level errors.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI think peer review is very important and helpful part. We can get better advice form peer review. Peer review can help you brainstorm, and tell you the lack of your writing skills. Also, you need to give some advice to your peer. You need to start brainstorming and give some advice form other aspect. If you don’t have new idea, you also can give some advice about writing skills. Whatever, peer review helps you and your peer together.
ReplyDeleteYes! Peer review is helpful for the reviewer and the reviewee.
DeleteWEx worries me because to me, it's weird to get feedback from a classmate instead of the actual who is a professional and trained in this. Likewise, I feel like I can't give adequate feedback to my fellow classmates the same way a teacher could, because I'm not an experienced writer.
ReplyDeleteI usually don't do a true "rough draft". I guess I kind of just start writing with the basics of what I plan on having, then I jump around and add more and continue elaborating until I have a cohesive paper. I usually don't ask someone to read my work unless I've read over it a few times and something doesn't seem right.
You are correct that peer feedback is not the same as teacher feedback (which you will receive on your graded PSA, SSI, and ARP, as well as comments on your ungraded ARP). Peer review is about learning how to apply revision techniques to your own work by first looking at the work of others.
DeleteWhat worries me most about Wex is the type of reviews I will be receiving. As stated in the blog post, I have also had peer reviews where the person was not that invested in critiquing my paper or simply just did the bare minimum so they could get the grade. Also, It seemed that in the last Wex assignment that the reviewing prompts felt more like reflections of the paper rather than a critique of what the paper should include. For me, I like to review papers as if I was the target audience, and ask them to include certain aspects or takeaway some that would make it more appealing to said audience. I have never had a really good reviewer, and I think it is because of this that my writing process is usually one step with one draft that ends up being the final copy. I am welcome to change this, however, if it'll improve my overall work.
ReplyDeleteSounds like you'll be a great reviewer, and hopefully with the specific structure of WEx, you'll get some useful feedback.
DeleteWhat worries me most is that I can't give effective suggestions to make my classmates' paper better. The reviews that I give out is quite important for them. The peer reviews I did before is different from WEx: we sit together, read through each others' paper and make some notes, then we give some suggestions to each other about the structure, main idea and the length. However, sometimes my peers didn't give any helpful advice, they just told me that I did a good job... I think every advice is important so I will make some revision base on the suggestions.
ReplyDeleteI hope we can learn a lot through sharing and reviewing our works on WEx.
shen.972
Yep, small group peer review is a common way to do it. The anonymity of WEx along with the window of time given creates a different sort of experience.
DeletePeer review helped me improve my writing skills. One year ago, I took a political science class. In this class, I needed to write an essay about American government and a comment for other peer. In this time, I was not good at writing, so my paper was not that good. I got a comment from other student. I forget his name, but anyway, he wrote down a long comment about my writing style. When I saw that comment at first, I did not like it because his comment is too concise. I started to revise my way to write, so in the end of semester, I got a A for paper for the political science class.
ReplyDeleteGlad you've had a positive peer review experience in the past!
DeleteAfter the learning process of the WEx website, the WEx cycle is the thing that I worry about. In the WEx cycle, students will be blocked out if they miss a submission of the project, that means students who submit the assignment a bit late of the due time will have no chance to continue the project anymore. However, the setting of the reviews and reflections are really good for peer reviewing. The WEx helps peers asses the essay from several different angles, which is better for peers coming up with good suggestions.
ReplyDeletewang.8756
Ouyang Wang
Yep, you should definitely be aware of the deadlines as you will miss out on crucial feedback.
DeleteTypically I do not have many peers review any of my written work. WEx is a bit disconcerting as I do not tend to share my writing with others. Past experiences with peer review were neither good nor bad. Most of the time I have had any mandated peer review, no one took it seriously. Typically my writing process consists of only two drafts: rough and final. I start writing by getting all of my thoughts out on the page whether or not they sound perfect. After I have written my entire paper or essay, I go back and read through what I have written. As I read I fix anything that either sounds weird or doesn't fit with what I am trying to say. Then I usually submit the assignment.
ReplyDeleteSam Tufts
tufts.34
Hopefully the anonymity aspect of WEx will help the process be a bit less disconcerting.
Delete