Blog Post #3

Blog Post #3
How Can You Provide Meaningful Feedback to Your Peers?

When I first read through this assignment, I was dreading it. I did not want to have to critique a peer's work much less my group partner. I mean, I was going to have to face her in class in a couple of days. What if her post was horrible and her grammar was that of a 2nd grader? I was going to have to call her out on it. Oh even worse, what if she was the type to hold a grudge and she has to evaluate me in the future and grade me? There could be nothing worthwhile to come out of this assignment. Then I watched the video, What is Peer Editing? and viewed the slideshow, Peer Edit With Perfection Tutorial and I realized that peer editing isn't taking someone's work and destroying it or belittling the hard work put into it. Peer editing is about helping a college achieve their best and produce quality work. The video states that you need to do three things to properly peer edit. The first is to compliment. Stay positive and compliment your peer's work. You can do this by complimenting their outline or organization. If there was a statement that stood out to you, you could mention it. The next thing to do is offer suggestions. This could be done by pointing out where a thought could be expanded on or maybe take away some thought. You could also offer suggestions on more places to research the topic of the work. The last thing to do is help make notice of corrections that need to be made. This would be spelling and grammatical errors or if you know that some facts are wrong in the paper. The most important thing to remember when editing a peer's work is to be supportive and helpful. Remember how you want someone to edit your work and treat your peers that way too.

I enjoyed watching the video Writing Peer Review Top 10 Mistakes and the comical names given to each of "the mistakes" that people can portray. While all 10 mistakes were ones to keep in mind, 5 stood out to me and related more to the type of peer editing I need to do. Picky Patty was someone who pointed out every single little mistake that could be wrong with the paper. She would point out if a period was bigger than it should be or a paragraph started a millimeter to far from the margin. You want to help someone write the best that they can but don't go looking for mistakes to try and belittle someone's work. This leads me to Mean Margaret. The person who has an attitude and talks down to people like there is nothing wrong with them nor their work. Remember to use kind words and don't be derogatory. You don't want to be a Pushy Paula either. Keep in mind that you are not perfect either and make mistakes. Don't push your ideas and opinions on someone else. If your view doesn't agree with the peer you are editing, search out another source. If you are arguing on how to spell something, get a dictionary. If you think a paragraph should be reworked and your peer doesn't, ask for another opinion. When being edited or given feedback, do not become a Defensive Dave. Nobody wants to be called out on their mistakes and quite honestly, no one wants to have to admit that they make mistakes. Truth is though, we do all make mistakes. If your peer is being a Mean Margaret or Picky Patty, you would become defensive and want to protect your work and all that you put into it. But, if your peer is giving compliments, offering suggestions and trying to help you make corrections then be thankful that someone is helping you and is wanting you to succeed. Lastly, don't be a Jean the Generalizer. With all the rules of how not to hurt someone's feelings, not push your ideas on them or nit pick their work apart, you don't want to just give general editing ideas. Be specific. If you think a topic should be expanded on, tell them and offer suggestions on how to expand. If there are grammatical errors, point them out politely and don't just say the errors are in the whole paper. If you approach peer editing with a positive attitude and the onset of helping someone, you won't become any of these people.

After watching all the videos and slideshows, I went to my group partner, Dominique Jone's blog, to peer edit her posts. I chose not to publicly critique her blog #2 because we both worked on that blog and did it through Google Drive. While working on that post, we would both start a document and put thoughts, ideas or commentary in the document and then ask for the other person's opinion and thoughts. When grammatical errors were spotted or areas that should be expanded on, we offered up our suggestions. With Dominique's Blog #1, I chose to peer edit publicly. I chose this option because I didn't feel that my critique could embarrass her nor hurt her feelings. I followed the previously mentioned video's advice and I started out by complimenting what I liked about her post. Then I made some suggestions. I felt that there were some areas that could be expanded on and asked about them. Lastly, I would have mentioned any corrections that needed to be made but didn't see any grammatical or spelling errors that needed to be pointed out.