Scott Kaufman
WR 39B
January 23, 2001
Peer Review Exercise
I. Argument
1. Read the first paragraph and identify the thesis statement/conclusion.
i. Is this an arguable thesis? If so, go to ii. If not, how would you
revise is to make it arguable?
ii. If this were your essay, how would you argue this thesis? What kind
of analysis and/or evidence would you use to support it?
2. Finish reading the essay. Identify the premises. Do they support the
thesis/conclusion? Considering what you wrote for 1.ii., what additional
premises can you think of that would strengthen the essay? Or, the turn
it around, would the removal of ambiguous and/or irrelevant premises
strengthen the argument?
II. Organization
1. Introduction
i. Is the thesis sentence found in the introduction?
ii. Does the introduction grab your attention? Does it make you want
to read the essay? (Remember, I have to read 23 of these, so getting
and holding my attention is important.) If so, how? If not, think about
the rest of the essay and propose an introduction that might.
2. Body Paragraphs
i. Are there strong transitions between paragraphs, or does the essay
seem to consist of independent blocks of analysis? If the former, how
do these strong transitions work? If the latter,consider how these body
paragraphs function as premises for the essay's argument and suggest
ways in which they could be related to each other.
ii. Are the paragraphs themselves coherent arguments? That is, do they
have topic sentences that function as conclusions for the paragraph's argument?
If so, run the premise/conclusion drill on a sample paragraph. If not, determine
what the paragraph is attempting to argue and generate a topic sentence.
3. Conclusion
i. Does it accurately represent the essay's argument? That is, has the author
effectively proven what they promised they would prove in their introduction?
ii. Does it acknowledge the limitations of an argument based on only 2 essays, or
does it claim to be the last word on the subject matter? If the former, does
it suggest some possible alternative interpretation (and if it doesn't, you should)?
If the latter, make 2 counter-arguments that you feel the writer of the essay
should be made aware of.
III. Language
1. Is the paper riddled with spelling/grammar errors?
2. Are there contractions? (There shouldn't be.)
3. How readable is this essay? Could you understand what the author was trying
to say, or was their meaning obscured by language errors?
4. Is the tone of the essay academic or conversational? That is, did it sound like you
were reading the writing of a sophisticated author? Or did it sound like the author
was just talking to you?
