Peer Review Reflection

I have definitely never been a fan of peer review. I was never really comfortable with other people reading and critiquing my writing. However, I really enjoyed this peer review. I received a lot of good recommendations on how to improve my paper, many of which I don't think I would have come up with on my own. The comments I gave to others were generally about incorporating analysis of the different types of rhetoric throughout the paper, as opposed to just at the end. This was something I had struggled with as well, and changed between my zero draft and rough draft. I also found myself asking for specific examples of moments that occurred in others' narratives. This was something that was asked of me in my paper as well, so I will be adding more specific examples into my paper. In the lectures and reading on peer review, it was stressed to remember that you as the reader are here to help the writer better their paper, not judge or correct. I thought this was extremely important, as no one wants to feel that their work is being attacked and judged. I think this is why I was never a fan of peer review previously. It was also mentioned that praise should be equal to criticism. I think this is important as it lets the writer know what is really good about their paper and what the reader found interesting. I also like that critiques are supposed to be positive. People are more likely to listen to your suggestions if they come off as helpful and constructive rather than demanding or condescending.
I love seeing the different approaches all of us took with this assignment. All of these varying situations have us buying, watching, and reading different things and influencing us in different ways, but they all share one thing in common: the use of rhetoric. It was interesting to see how people interpreted rhetoric and which aspects of rhetoric they focused on. As we progress to a final draft of our papers, I think we need to focus on refining what we have written, adding specific and detailed moments to our narratives, and incorporating analysis throughout the paper. As far as making our analysis better, I think we should continue to apply the different types of rhetoric to our writing by using the information we get from the readings (chapters 2-4 in Everything is an Argument) and further explain why these types of rhetoric are applicable.