JCCC – Composition II Spring 1999 -- Peer Review Sheet for Synthesis Assignment 1

This peer review sheet contains two parts. The first part is a reminder of how to write this essay before you come to the peer review workshop. It basically summarizes some of the things we’ve been discussing in class. The second part of this sheet is the actual peer review guide that you will want to use when critiquing each other’s drafts and revising your own draft.

Part One – Drafting Guide

Organization

Your introduction will want to grab the reader’s attention, to emphasize the importance of the topic, and to provide some background on the topic. You might want to complete a short brainstorming list of how you might do this. Your thesis statement will be the last sentence of your introduction, but you will want to think of this thesis statement as being more like a controlling idea rather than an argumentative statement. Because you will merely be describing the topic in this essay rather than arguing about it, you do not want to write a thesis that asserts your own opinion about the topic. Instead, the thesis should signal to the reader that the essay will provide further information about the topic that has just been introduced. At the end of the introduction, a reader should realize that the essay will be descriptive rather than argumentative.

Once again, in organizing the body of your essay, you will want to break the central topic down into subtopics and organize your paragraphs according to those subtopics, not according to the three sources that are contributing the information. Thus, it would be incorrect to devote paragraph two to information solely from source 1, paragraph three to information from source 2, and paragraph four to information from source 3. Rather, one paragraph may contain information from two or three of the essays. You need to use a good mixture of direct quotations and paraphrases. Remember only to quote material in which the significance would be diminished by a paraphrase.

Also, I would encourage you to think beyond a simple three-paragraph organizational strategy for the body of this essay. How will you organize the paragraphs of the body? Will you move from the most important information about your topic to the least important information? Will the first paragraph of the body establish a problem that exists with the topic and the following paragraphs develop solutions for addressing that problem? Whatever organizational strategy you employ, one paragraph should naturally lead to the next paragraph. If a reader could re-arrange the body paragraphs without hurting the content, then the essay is poorly organized.

While the bulk of this essay featured other people’s opinions on the topic, the conclusion is a proper place for you to emphasize what you think is important about the topic. For example:

• What surprised you most about the topic?
• Of the differing attitudes expressed in the three source essays, which do you find yourself closest to in agreement?
• What can readers learn from a discussion and consideration about the topic?

Whatever you choose to do in your conclusion, you want to make sure that you suggest a larger context that gives the reader something to consider after finishing your essay. Under no circumstances should your conclusion only be a summary of what you’ve just described in the body of your essay.

Part Two – Peer Review Workshop Sheet and Revising Guidelines

After completing at least one draft, you should now consider this checklist to determine the extent of your revisions:

Introduction

• Do I establish the background of the topic and the importance of the topic?
• Does my introduction grab the reader’s attention?
• Do I end the introduction with a thesis (controlling idea) that allows a reader to see that the essay will describe various aspects and opinions regarding the topic?

Body

• Have I organized the essay according to subtopics rather than according to the sources?
• Are the paragraphs arranged so that one paragraph naturally leads to the next paragraph?
• Does each paragraph have a clear topic sentence?
• Are transitional statements and expressions used throughout?
• Do I refrain from summarizing the source as a whole, choosing instead to use only information from the source that develops the goal established in the thesis of the my essay?
• Is it clear what information comes from which source?
• Are direct quotations and paraphrases accurate?
• Is the information from the sources attributed properly?
• Do I use proper MLA documentation?
• Are sources integrated smoothly?
• Do I adequately and accurately describe the topic?
• Is the description objective? Do I avoid asserting my own opinion in the body of the essay?

Conclusion

• Have I avoided simply summarizing in the conclusion?
• Do I suggest a larger context?
• Does the conclusion leave the reader with something to consider?

MLA Documentation reminders

Because this assignment incorporates information from at least three other sources, it is important that you properly follow the appropriate style for quoting, paraphrasing and citing. For comprehensive information regarding MLA style (the format we will be using throughout the course), you might check the following sites:

• Purdue OWL Handouts: "MLA Format: Giving Credit to Sources" <http://owl.english.purdue.edu/Files/33.html>
• MLA Style – helpful for providing the most recent info on citing Internet sources. This is the only site authorized by the MLA. <http://www.mla.org>

Documentation within your essay:

You must always attribute any information you incorporate from another source, even if you do not directly quote the material. This means that in addition to direct quotations, paraphrases must also be cited. You may attribute an Internet source by either introducing the direct quotation or paraphrase with the author name, or by including the author name in parenthesis after the quotation or paraphrase.

• Introducing the author before the cited information: According to John Smith, in his article "Defending Free Speech," people must always remember the ones who suffered to make free speech a right.

• Parenthetical Documentation: It is important to remember the ones who suffered to make free speech a right (Smith).

Notes for MWF sections; TR sections follow the information in Little, Brown Handbook. You may have noticed that the previous examples do not incorporate the page numbers in addition to the author name. For books or printed periodical articles, you learned to include a page number so that the parenthetical citation would appear as such: (Smith 4). Internet documents, however, do not have page numbers; therefore, you need only document the writer’s name (or essay title if anonymous). Ignore the page numbers that might appear on computer printouts.

Works Cited page for your essay:

The bibliographic entry on the works cited page follows the same rules of books and periodicals, but you also include the web address and the date you originally accessed the material.

The above entry contains six parts:

• Author name (if there is no author name, begin with the article title)
• Article title
• Home page name (or periodical title)
• Date article was published or last time web site was updated (if this information cannot be found, leave it blank)
• Date when material was accessed
• Web address

 Comp 2 MWF