When responding to two peers, discuss their insights and offer additional tips and support, pulling from the readings and your own experiences as guidance.

Peer 1:

Margo Wian posted

I feel confident that my draft flows relatively smoothing, creating a clear and comprehensive idea of my argument. I feel particularly well about one of my key points, being that diversity in the workplace increases productivity. I feel that is my strongest key point because there is so much evidence to support this claim. I could use this to strengthen other sections by continuing to find more supportive research to back up my additional key points. I think the section of my draft that could use the further improvement is my conclusion. I definitely feel I could better summarize my essay through the conclusion, and really hone in on my argument. The feedback I have found to be most useful is to use topic sentences to better support my claims, such as “another reason why workplace beneficial is because…”

Peer 2

Colin Dowdy posted

I think that, looking at the bigger picture, my essay is written well. All of the information I need is present and supported by evidence. My strength in essay writing has always been the body paragraphs, and it shows here. I think I make compelling arguments in an easy to follow form. Even with all this considered, I also think my introductory and concluding paragraphs are a solid start and end to my paper. Narrowing down, I think my first body paragraph is the strongest. It addresses counterpoints in a convincing manner, and the analysis I presented within it is strong.

Where I could use the most work, however, is in mechanics, flow, and word choice. I often find myself running into problems with wordiness (which was corroborated by the professor’s comments on my draft). I should look over each sentence, especially topic sentences in the context of the paper as a whole, and look to make more concise choices of words and cut out unnecessary filler or substantiation. The reason I have issues with this is because I am, at times, excessively concerned about making sure my exact thought process is conveyed, which lends itself to me writing in purple prose, or adding conditions to my statements ad nauseum to make sure their intent and limitations is clear, despite the fact that I can usually just make those conditional statements later on in the paper. This will be my focus, and it will require rereading very closely. In addition, I plan to read the paper aloud a few times to ensure that it is easy to follow, and I also plan to seek additional peer revision in order to try and fine-tune other potential issues.