When we first started to peer edit, I would mostly do grammar and did not quite understand what was meant by “global issues.” I eventually learned by Paper 3 how to peer edit where the writer will benefit from my suggestions. I learned to point out where they had mistakes and then offered a suggestion. I did not do this for Paper 1; I would only tell them this sentence does not make sense or add a little more here for this topic. Even those suggestions were significant for me to suggest because I thought I was helping them out a lot. However, I learned that when they were pointing out mistakes in my paper, I wanted more suggestions and ideas as well. I wish I had made some more global suggestions for Paper 1 and two on my peers’ paper and corrected their grammar a little less.
When I would meet up with Jesse or Stephen, a big concern for Paper 1 was topic sentences, so when I edited my peers’ paper, I made sure to be on the lookout, and I was not the only one that had that problem. On Grace’s Paper 3, I suggested that she also fix her paragraphs and add topic sentences. I also recommended topic sentences, or if I found it later in the section, I would express that this would be better at the beginning of the paragraph (Comment 3).
I also commented on Grace’s paper that she did a great job introducing the articles (Comment 1) because that was something I did not do and even the other peer I edited did not as well. She properly introduced the articles which strengthened her paper and left no confusion for the reader. I learned from Grace’s paper to do the same. It is also nice to edit my peers’ papers because I can see what they did well that I lacked so I can learn from their writing and improve mine.
On Grace’s paper, I had suggested that she further expand her thoughts and explain what she was writing about more. Had I been making this suggestion at the beginning of the semester I would have left it at that but I learned to suggest ideas to her paper (Comment 5). I told Grace to explain how meat is a part of our culture and culture is hard to change because it’s a way of life. I suggested this because in the Paper it felt like she was getting at the cultural aspect but was not saying it out front. Grace wrote, “I think that one of the reasons that people aren’t willing to give up meat is because if they have been eating it their whole lives they have attached certain memories to certain meals, they don’t want to give that up” (Frohock). When I was reading this part, it felt like she was trying to explain the fact that meat is a part of our culture, so I suggested her an idea and how to word it better as well.
Grace continued to write about how Foer, the author of the article, “Against Meat,” was not able to stick to vegetarianism until he recognized his values did not align with his actions of eating meat. Grace forgot to mention that his kids played a significant role as well because he did not want to teach his kids these values. His kids caused him to think about his values because kids are curious and question everything (Comment 7). I made this suggestion because it would strengthen the concept she is presenting. Had this been the beginning of the semester, I would have just commented that she was writing the incorrect information and not suggest any new ideas.
