Peer Critique Letter Guidelines

After you have thoroughly read your partner's paper, use the following questions as a guideline for composing a critique letter to the writer about his/her draft. Your critique letter should be written directly and personally to the writer (not to me) and should offer an informed, intelligent reader response to the draft. Your aim in not merely to point out weaknesses in the draft, but more importantly, to explain its strengths and to offer concrete recommendations for how the writer can improve upon the draft, giving it greater clarity of ideas, depth and insight, and readability of the prose.  

Your critique letter should be approximately two typed pages. When you hand in your final version of the paper, include the original draft and the critique you received.

How does this draft respond to the selected paper topic?

What is the thesis?  How does the writer support or defend this thesis? How, if at all, could the thesis be modified to strengthen the paper?

How attentive and insightful is the writerąs reading of his/her chosen text?  What did the analysis reveal to you about the text that you hadnąt considered or been aware of? Explain.

Do you agree (or disagree) with the writerąs interpretation of the selected Evolving Canon 1 texts?  Why or why not?   Does the other use sufficient textual evidence to support her/his thesis?  Does the author demonstrate careful and insightful close reading of the text?

What did you like best about this paper? Why?

What did you like least about this paper? Why?

What suggestions do you have for the writer in terms of the writing of this paper?

 Directly on the text, make any corrections in grammar, punctuation, or spelling.