No Class--Thurs 11/13

No Class on Thurs. 11/13.

Please use this time to work on your peer review. You should have 2-3 essays from your peers. Read them. Make comments in the margins. Write them a letter detailing not your critique of the paper, but your suggestions for how the paper can improve. You are an advocate here, so act like it.
Please make an extra copy of your end comments (the letters you are writing) and give it to me on Tuesday.

Please focus on:
1. Argument. Rhetorical purposes. How is this essay trying to be persuasive. Does it succeed? How can this argument be strengthened? If you didn't agree with the author, what would your points be?

2. Research. Examine a) if there is enough research. If not, the essay will feel superficial and shallow. The points will rely too heavily on one or two sources and will invite the reader to find discount the points the author is making because they will feel like opinion, as opposed to well researched points. IF the author needs to do more research, tell them.

3. Logic and Organization. First, if the paper is all over the place and jumps from point to point you need to let the author know where he can slow down, expand and connect the points of logic for his reader. Often, our first drafts are wild and your job here is to tame it a little. Is the paper organized?

4. Language. Specifically academic voice. Is this essay written for an academic audience. Can it replace "I" and "you" with third-person pronouns "He," She," "One?"

5. Where can the author expand this paper to make it better (and to fit the requirements of this assignment).

Good luck. See you on Tuesday.