0:02 [Music]
0:03 I feel like you have a lot of analysis,
0:05 but like you don't really it's not like
0:07 connecting. You don't really know what
0:08 it's like going towards. I would
0:10 actually just cut this entire section
0:11 right here. Do you feel that I should
0:14 probably address the issue of purpose in
0:15 my actual thesis statement? When we
0:19 think about peer review, it's useful
0:21 actually to have a sense of how central
0:24 it is. There's kind of peer review that
0:26 happens in the classroom where peers,
0:29 students, other people just like you are
0:30 looking at your work and you're looking
0:34 at theirs. Now, on a professional level,
0:36 that person might be a peer. It might be
0:38 somebody you've never met. You might be
0:41 the pre-minent scholar in your field and
0:43 your peer might be somebody quite
0:45 junior. Peer itself, just that term is
0:48 very open-ended. It's basically anybody
0:50 else engaged in the same project you're
0:52 engaged in. trying to understand these
0:54 basic questions of the discipline.
0:57 There's always a need to have somebody
0:58 else tell you where you're going off
1:01 course. Nobody writes alone. Nobody
1:04 finishes work alone. Peer review is
1:08 really the feedback mechanism about the
1:11 quality of our ideas and how well we
1:14 communicate them. And that's really how
1:32 [Music]
1:36 The response to one's work in whatever
1:38 form it takes is always crucial. So you
1:40 want to know simply if people like your
1:43 work, but you also really want to get,
1:45 you know, a qualitative understanding of
1:47 whether or not your work is doing what
1:49 you intended to do and whether it's
1:51 satisfying some requirement of your
1:54 audience. I wasn't taught how to do peer
1:56 review. It can be a very mysterious
1:58 process and certainly a scary one. Uh
2:00 which is why we need to talk more about
2:02 um how it's done and what it involves.
2:03 It's very hard to understand the process
2:05 until you've done both sides, till
2:06 you've actually done the reviewing and
2:08 as well as received the reviewing. I've
2:10 talked to all of you, I think, in
2:12 conference now on this paper. So, you've
2:14 gotten my feedback. And today's peer
2:17 review is for you to share feedback with
2:19 each other. The students in my class
2:21 working on each other's drafts. What
2:24 they were doing was really helping the
2:28 writers produce these ideas to their
2:30 best possible level. I just thought you
2:31 could probably combine the first two
2:33 paragraphs. Like I know what you're
2:35 trying to get at, but I feel like you
2:37 took too much, like too long to explain
2:39 it. If you're a student beginning the
2:41 process of peer review and you're
2:44 uncertain about what you might say to
2:46 somebody, I think one thing to remember
2:49 is that what you're really doing is
2:52 providing the experience of a reader. If
2:54 you keep that in mind, you can't really
2:56 go wrong. I really like this. It was
2:58 personal, but it wasn't too personal
3:00 that it would it would feel like you
3:02 were talking about yourself or you. I
3:04 tell students that they get to say, "I
3:07 liked it only once per class." They have
3:08 to understand that there are
3:11 collaborators here and that, you know,
3:12 it's important to notice what's good in
3:15 a work, but you have to be focused and
3:18 specific. This section here, I might
3:21 edit to be a little less inflammatory.
3:22 We've all had some experience with peer
3:25 review that isn't positive. Whether
3:28 that's getting reviews on our own work
3:29 or being put on the spot to say
3:31 something when we're not quite sure what
3:32 we think yet. There is a difference
3:36 between and saying this piece of writing
3:39 doesn't work and you're a bad person.
3:40 And it's incumbent of course on the
3:41 teacher to make sure that that
3:44 distinction never gets you know never
3:45 gets forgotten in the classroom. Those
3:48 mutual newspapers give the effects of
3:50 the situation in a way which creates
3:52 negativity in the reader's mind, but at
3:54 the same time the re the document itself
3:56 remains objective. When you're beginning
3:58 to give peer review, what that probably
4:00 means is you're beginning not only to
4:03 learn the process of peer review, but
4:05 you're beginning to learn the process of
4:07 understanding whatever it is that you're
4:10 reviewing. That's a perfect time to also
4:12 begin peer review. not to wait until
4:14 you're an expert, but to start at that
4:15 point where everything is new, where
4:17 you're beginning, because that's when
4:18 you have the best questions, you have
4:21 the the most capacity to recognize
4:24 features and to ask about them really
4:26 freshly. Do you think that using the
4:29 term social action to further explain
4:31 the effect that that has on the audience
4:34 would be a good inclusion in my essay?
4:35 Coming into this class, I had the notion
4:38 that if I dedicated more and more time
4:40 by myself to a certain essay that that
4:42 was going to perfect it. But, you know,
4:44 really just one word or one sentence
4:47 from someone else can open up
4:49 possibilities for me that I would never
4:50 have realized no matter how long I spent.
4:58 Because it's a professional requirement.
5:00 peer review can seem like a a mechanical
5:03 exercise, but my experience more and
5:05 more has been that it's a tremendously
5:08 creative um endeavor and and done well
5:10 is as important to the intellectual
5:12 process of the work. It's the one place
5:14 where the author's work becomes truly
5:15 collaborative. It's central and it
5:18 permeates everything we do in academia.
5:19 It gives me that both those seemingly
5:21 strong men in some sense, right? So, I
5:23 just wanted to have some sense of how
5:25 you people think about how you respond
5:27 to that. It helps us get better at all
5:30 the other acts we perform in academia.
5:32 It helps us get better at learning the
5:35 methods, at creating ideas. Peer review
5:38 keeps us on our toes. It uh complicates
5:40 and enriches our thinking. And you know,
5:42 it's the best possible thing in the
5:44 world to have a smart person really
5:47 looking at your work with that depth and
5:50 regard such that if you listen to what
5:53 they say and work with it, you you and
5:55 your work become better. my writing
5:58 isn't the best and I know that and when
5:59 people point it out to me it's always
6:01 surprising and today they actually
6:03 showed me how I could actually fix my
6:07 essay which was quite constructive and
6:09 hopefully when I go back and look over
6:11 my essay I'll be able to fix those
6:13 errors which will otherwise make my
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