SQR2

Jessica Mendoza


ENG 1320/1301. 158

Instructor: Trang Phan

Sep. 7, 2010

Peer Response

S. Peer Response was basically about the way we should give a response on a writers paper. It talks about the PQP “Praise-Question-Polish” this technique helps the writer with their feedback that comes from other people comments and helps them with the comments even if the response is little harsh. Praise is asking yourself what was good about the paper and what did you not like? Questions are looking it through and see if you understood it all or not. And Polish, if you would change anything about the paper what would it be? Then they used something they call “vague, general but useful, or specific” this are also ways to help you realize how to give out a better and honest response and the ways you shouldn’t comment. Vague, are comments that give the writer some or none specific way to check your paper like when you comment on the paper saying “oh I liked this part of the paper…” in my opinion this is not a good way to comment. General but useful, are comments that are a bit to general but useful for instant when they say “be more specific on this area..” and specific comments are comments that go straight to the point, they tell you what you need to do to make that paper better, this is how we should comment to help people out. It also talks about basic activities to do while being in class with groups and alone as well.

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

Q. Neubert and McNelis categorized students’ comments into 3 types: Vague, General but Useful, and Specific. What are the characteristics of each type of comments? Why is it important for comments to be specific?


R. Vague are comments that provide not much or no specific direction when it comes to a paper. An example of vague is like when you don’t get an article but don’t want to be mean about it, so you just kind of give them a clue of what to change like a paragraph for say. General but Useful are comments that are still way to general but are useful for the writer, for instant telling the writer to explain a little more on some specific thing or person. And specific means comments that are straight to the point, they tell the writer exactly what they didn’t understand or what might be needed to be changed. It is important for comments to be specific because if you’re not then you’re not helping the writing with its paper. If something really needs to be changed or left alone as it is, then that might me something that the writer itself didn’t catch and will be very helpful for them to change later on. Just like me, I don’t really like for others to read my paper but when it comes to that and for them to comment it with their complete honesty, that really helps me catch things I didn’t catch before.