Johnson County Community College – Composition II – Spring Semester 1999

Peer Review Sheet for Comparison/Contrast Essay

Instructions: To receive credit for today’s peer review, you need to exchange your comparison/contrast draft with at least two other students in the class. You must also fill out a peer review sheets for at least two other students as well. If you did not bring a draft today, you cannot participate in the peer review activity.

When responding to another person’s draft I would like you to keep in mind some of the points I make below, but I also want every student to write on the following as well:

1. Offer at least one positive comment about that person’s paper.
2. Write down two questions or recommendations about that person’s paper. These two questions should focus on the content of the essay.

Here is a checklist of items to consider as you read drafts and as you re-write your own draft this week. These questions focus upon content. Of course, you will also want to keep in mind grammar, punctuation and spelling. Even if the content is fine, a paper with mechanical problems will affect a reader’s comprehension of the content, so proofread carefully.

Introduction

• Does the introduction provide background material on the subject?
• Does the introduction grab your attention?
• Does the essay introduce the authors and the essays that will be compared?
• Does the essay focus on only two essays? Are they the correct essays for comparison – check the assignment.
• Does the introductory paragraph end with a thesis that states an opinion and establishes a comparison/contrast format?

Body

• Does the essay make use of the point-by-point organizational method rather than the block organizational method?
• Are the paragraphs well developed? Are they at least 10 sentences in length?
• How well organized are the individual paragraphs? Remember this strategy:

1. Topic sentence of paragraph – introduce the common characteristic or point from the essays you’ll be comparing.
2. Next 4 sentences or so – discuss how Essay A presents that point – use paraphrases, summary, and direct quotations to present the essay’s point of view.
3. Next 4 sentences or so – discuss how Essay B presents that point – use paraphrases, summary, and direct quotations to present the essay’s point of view. Be sure to have a smooth transition from your discussion of essay A to essay B – you may want an entire transitional sentence.
4. Remaining 3 or so sentences – make clear to your reader precisely how and why the articles are similar or different on this point and the significance of this similarity/difference.

• Are there at least two body paragraphs?
• Are there smooth transitions between the body paragraphs?
• Are the body paragraphs organized logically? For example, if you are only citing differences between the essays, you may want to begin with the most significant differences and move to less obvious differences.

Conclusion: Here are some ideas for a conclusion. You could not do all of them because your paragraph would be unfocused. Whatever is done, make sure that the conclusion is not just a summary of the rest of the essay.

• Does the final paragraph emphasize what is important about the comparison/contrast strategy just implemented?
• Does the paragraph evaluate the two essays and consider which one is better?
• Does the paragraph emphasize why it is important to consider the topic of the essays?
• Does the paragraph tell the reader what you’ve learned from completing a comparison/contrast?

 Comp 2