Blog Post # 3

In the first video, "What is Peer editing?", and the slide show, "Peer Edit With Perfection Tutorial" , the authors both first explain that peer editing is editing a paper or some kind of work of someone that is your age. She then goes into talking about the best way to peer edit someone’s work. First, you need to start off giving compliments of the work. I think this is important because, yes, you are editing someone’s work, but they worked hard on it. Even if it’s not the best thing, at least find something to compliment them on. The author points out that a very important rule is to stay positive. We need to remember that we are editing something that another person (hopefully) took some time into writing and really tried their best to do well. Yes, you need to help correct their mistakes but you do not have to be mean about it. Always think about how you would want someone to correct your mistakes. Once you have complimented the writer’s work you can then make suggestions on how to make their paper better. The key word here is suggestions; the writer does not have to take your suggestions and when you suggest something make sure to do it in a way that does not come out as if you are telling them to change their work. After complimenting and suggesting things, you then correct them on the mistakes that you have found. Once again, you need to do this in a way that will not hurt their feelings. There is a way to criticize someone’s work in a nice way rather than in a mean way. Even if their work is awful, if they truly tried their best then it is not your place to be mean and rude.

In the video, "Writing Peer Reviews Top 10 Mistakes" , they go through 10 different ways of how not to peer edit. The ones that stuck out to me was “picky Patty” who was a little too picky on what the periods looked like at the end of sentences and how much space was between words. As a peer editor, it is your job to make suggestions and corrections to the paper but it is not your job to pick out every little detail of their handwriting or other little aspects of their work. I think “ Jean the Generalizer” is an important one as well. In this situation the peer editor is not being specific. She is telling the writer that there are some grammar mistakes but will not tell him where. As the peer editor it is your job to point out the mistakes they have made, but you need to be sure that you tell them exactly what the problem is and how to fix their mistakes, especially if it is a grammatical error. The writer needs to know what they did wrong so that on the next paper they will be sure not to make that mistake again. Lastly, I think the most important one is “Mean Margaret”. In this one the peer editor is correcting the paper in a mean way and making him feel embarrassed. As a peer editor it is very important to correct mistakes that the writer has made. However, there is no need to be rude about it and make them feel bad or embarrassed about the mistakes they have made. I really enjoyed reading (Paige’s blog). I think she did a great job explaining the situation and the way she handled it was great. That is something that as teachers we are going to have to face and knowing how to not embarrass a child is very important. I really enjoyed watching the video (writing peer reviews top 10 mistakes). It is a great video to show to kids before you begin peer editing in order to show them how not to peer edit. I think children would find it to be very funny and would learn a lot from it.