Gloria A. Neubert and Sally J. McNelis “Peer Response”: Teaching Specific Revision Suggestions The English Journal, Vol.79 No.5 (Sep 1990). Pg 52-56.


The article was about an experiment that they did to students to see how well they did doing an essay

under a new strategy called “PQP”. They notice that the students were giving each other comments

about the other student’s essay. If a prompt was suppose to be on their brother and they wrote more

on a sister they got a comment to write about the brother not the sister. Eventually after a couple of

group works the teacher noticed that the students were getting better at what they were writing. The

comments were better and they were on task. So after awhile they did it to the older students and they

also got better with the prompts and they were also on the task. The way they chose the groups was

by choosing one persons essay and they led the group. They commented on that essay and the following

time they wrote they used the comments made on the essay they put it in the revised writing and made

it better. Eventually they noticed that the comment method for writing was working because they

notice that the comments made good points to help them out. But during the comments they put it was

ok it didn’t help the writer become better putting that. So the comments made writers realize what

they need to focus on.



Q: Why peer response? What can peer’s comments do for one’s writing?


R: As I read the article I thought that the writers Gloria A. Neubert and Sally J. McNelis made an excellent

lab testing with the students. Some times it’s good to form groups and discuss someone’s essay writing

in comments on that paper telling them that they need to improve on a topic or on an idea that they

had to keep going on the details to get the image. It’s to help the writer become aware that they need

to do something to make readers concentrate on those notes. If a reader’s response to a writing “Oh its

ok” or “the essay was alright” that doesn’t help much for the writer to improve on their own writing and

what they need to change up to make it sound better for the other readers can understand it the next

time. A good comment is if the reader puts down would be like “Stay on the topic for better

understanding”, “need to correct words”, or “good essay write more with details to get a better

imagine on what is going on.” This would be helpful to a writer to improve on the writing if they need

to correct a line, word, or something that needed revision. The comment is there to guide them to see

what they need to correct as they revise it themselves and rewrite and improve on what the reader told

them to do. The idea is to help the writer know what they can change up and improve for the next time

they are asked for an essay they try and stay on the topic and not do the same mistakes and they change

up the comments. But the writer cannot get offended about what the way the reader responded and

commented on the essay. Since it for a good reason just take it in and respond to it as good thing that

others are trying to help you out improve in writing.