Enhance strategies for reading, drafting, revising, editing, and self-assessment.
During this course, we completed three projects which were all written in different genres. However, with all three projects, there was a process of writing the paper, doing peer reviews, and editing/revising based on those reviews. While yes, actually writing the paper was the main thing to do, it was only half of the work. Getting peer-reviewed helped us get other people’s insight into what works and what doesn’t. It can help us get an understanding of what the general public wants to read about. For example, when we did a scientific narrative paper, the class was put into small groups and each completed a peer review worksheet on each other. Reading through the peer review made me realize how I added more scientific data than I should have. Scientific narratives should be more about a person’s experience and written like a story. I added scientific data because I thought it would be helpful to convey my message but my data outweighed my personal content.
And doing peer reviews can help you think about what’s important in your own writing. For example, we had an assignment where we wrote a scientific narrative and we did a fishbowl during class where we read someone’s paper the night before and discussed it in class. While we did the discussion, I was looking over my paper and I realized it lacked the detail that could make people relate to the story, unlike the paper we were discussing. Although I couldn’t personally relate to their story, it was more enjoyable and I could imagine how they felt because of the abundance of detail. So, being able to peer review can lead to your own self-assessment and help you realize what you need to change so that the meaning of your writing gets across.
