Peer editing can be a helpful tool when you are short on time and your paper is due. By pairing up with another student in your class, you can make your writing more powerful. There are a few rules to follow so that this system is as helpful as possible. If you want to get quick feedback on whether your argument is strong or your dialogue makes sense, follow these steps.
How To Make Peer Editing Work
1. Pair up with someone who will be honest with your work. While best friends and parents are great for cheering you on, they’re not always the best person to look over your paper and give you the feedback you need to improve. The best person to pair up with is someone in your class.
2. Offer to look their paper over as well. Be honest as you read through about which parts work well and which parts don’t make sense or leave you with unanswered questions.
3. Don’t take criticism personally. When you’re working with a partner on peer editing, you want feedback about what’s not working for you. Remember, this is a process to make your writing stronger, if your partner only points out what you did well, you’re missing out on an opportunity to improve.
4. Be familiar with the proofreader’s marks. These shorthand marks help make the editing process go faster. By following standardized marks neither you nor your partner should have questions about what needs to be edited.
5. If a section in your classmate’s writing does not make sense, tell them what doesn’t make sense, and ask them what they might have meant to say there. Don’t rewrite the paper for them, but help guide them so that they know what to focus on for clarity’s sake.
6. While you should help your classmates, do not rewrite the paper for them. Do not take parts of your partner’s paper to use for your own. If your classmate writes a suggestion you wind up using, you can acknowledge the intellectual property in a footnote.
7. Be prompt. Remember you both have deadlines. Be clear about your deadline and respect your partner’s deadline.
When You Need More Than a Peer to Look Over Your Work
By following these simple rules, peer editing can be a benefit to your writing. When you need more help with writing than your peers can give you, contact me for an estimate. To get an accurate estimate, please include a couple of pages of your writing so that I can help you judge the level of editing your work will need to effectively communicate your ideas. I’ve helped clients with their novels, children’s books, dissertations, journal articles, conference presentations, and training manuals.
[…] also helpful to get feedback from other people and learn from them. You can do this through peer editing, joining a writing group, or even hiring an […]
[…] these comments and edit your paper as needed. Once you have done this, you may want to have someone proofread your paper for you for grammatical errors and typos. Format your manuscript following the guidelines from the journal exactly. Do not submit by email if […]