Your role as a peer reviewer is to provide your classmate with a reader’s perspective on their work so that they can revise their paper with new insight. Please read your classmate’s work through carefully so that you have a clear idea of the logic and flow of their argument before beginning to make your comments. 

The purpose of peer review is not to point out spelling or grammatical errors, but to help the writer to see how they can take their ideas to the next level. There is little point in spending time making a paragraph grammatically perfect if the writer then decides that the paragraph should be replaced with a different one. “Big picture” comments are usually more helpful than comments on the details.

Think about the following questions:

• Does the writer provide a clear thesis for their argument and stick to it closely throughout the paper?
• Do you find the argument convincing? If not, what else does the writer need to say to convince you?
• Are there are any parts of the paper that you find confusing, or which you think need to be explained more clearly?