INFN2001 Guidelines for the essay draft reviewing process: What is peer review? Peer review is a process which academic staff use to improve the quality of their work so that it can be published in scholarly journals. It is typically used at two stages in the production of a manuscript. First, the main author of a manuscript will usually circulate an early draft to colleagues or co‐
authors for comments. This is a very useful exercise and manuscripts often change almost beyond recognition (for the better) as a result. Once a final draft is completed (sometimes after multiple rounds of reviewing) it is submitted to the journal. It is then peer reviewed again. This time the reviewers are nominated by the journal editors and their names are not revealed to the authors. Peers are individuals who are expert on the relevant topic and so well qualified to judge the quality and impact of the manuscript. They review the work and write an evaluation of it. Usually two or three reviews are provided for each manuscript. The reviews suggest what changes, if any, should be made to bring the work up to publishable standard. A similar process is used for reviewing grant applications. The draft reviewing in INFN2001 is equivalent to the first stage of the manuscript writing process. Why do we want you to do ‘peer review’? 1. The process of drafting and redrafting will help you to understand and remember the factual content of this module. 2. It will help you take a step back and think about the content of the lectures in a broader context. 3. It will help you develop a useful set of skills: a) Working with others (teamwork) b) Evaluating the work of others (exercising judgment, providing feedback) c) Evaluating your own work (self‐awareness and reflection) d) Using critical thinking (weighing up strengths and weaknesses) e) Using your communication skills (expressing yourself carefully on paper and also orally during the review session) f) Redrafting (improving your writing ability) g) Managing your time (keeping to a deadline for the draft and the redraft) How will this work? You have already submitted your draft essay. You will now be paired with one other student taking the INFN2001 module. You may not “swap” pairs. Each pair will receive an e.mail with both their draft essays attached. It is your responsibility to make contact with your pair and start a dialogue about your essays. You may want to meet before the formal session to talk things through and agree how to annotate your essays, although this can be done by e.mail. What are you required to do? First, you should read the draft essay you are given in full. Then you are required to annotate the essay text with appropriate comments. How to do this: There are three options: 1. You may use the “Comment” tool in Microsoft word. This allows you to annotate a piece of text with comments which appear in a bubble at the side. 2. You may type your comments directly into the essay using the “track changes” tool, in Microsoft word. 3. You may type your comments directly into the essay, using colour or underlining or some other method to distinguish them from the original. You should discuss this with your “Paired student” to make sure that your chosen method is acceptable. Be sure to explain all your comments and try to balance the negative with the positive. Raise questions which encourage the author to reflect on the work and, where appropriate, suggest specific ways to improve the essay. Remember this is not just a licence to criticise. There is certainly a place for criticism, but as a reviewer your job is to help the author improve the essay. So it is expected that you will make constructive suggestions for how an essay might be improved, for example: are there pathogens that you can think of that would better illustrate a point? Are there concepts that are not included that should be? You might also think about some more general points: Does the essay really address the question? Is there a lot of irrelevant material in the essay? Does the essay have a clear structure? Is it obvious what the essay is about? Here are some comments based on the essays written in a previous year. These should help you in deciding what sorts of thing to comment on. They should also give you some insight into why we think the draft reviewing process is worthwhile. 1. A good essay should have a clear structure. Ideally it would state the nature of the topic and the parameters or the frame of reference then develop an argument illustrated with examples then draw conclusions. Those essays which were really not much more than a list of examples of pathogens did not score highly. Many of the essays lacked any obvious structure and this made them very hard to read and follow. Always write out a plan before you start. 2. Stay on the topic. Don’t give a lot of irrelevant information, however interesting it may be. You will not gain marks for it. (That goes for unseen exams as well.) 3. Avoid vague or subjective terminology and avoid the vernacular. For example don’t talk about “strong pathogens” or “bugs”. 4. Don’t plagiarise and don’t rely extensively on quoting other work. Some of the essays contained large sections in quotation marks. You are not being tested on your ability to transcribe someone else’s work, but on your ability to synthesise knowledge from a range of sources. 5. Describe, define and explain. Don’t just say, for example: “Virus X evades T cell recognition”. Say “Virus X evades T cell recognition by down regulation of MHC class 1 expression” and provide a reference. Of course you are constrained by a word limit, but it is almost always possible to provide a little information and that makes a big difference. 6. Always aim to provide mechanistic insight: how does something happen? Why does it happen? 7. Answer the question! This seems obvious, but there were a number of essays that really did not address the essay topic at all. 8. Read what you write. In many of the essays the written English was poor. It is hard for me to believe that many of you read your essays before submission. You were not penalised for bad writing but in some cases there was a de facto penalty because what you had written made no sense. Writing is a very important transferrable skill. When you leave UCL and embark on your career, you will almost certainly have to write: letters, reports, press releases, papers… 9. Cite and list your sources properly. Do not rely on HTTP addresses: the reader cannot make sense of them. You must give the name of the source in full, the author and any other relevant information. At second year level we would certainly expect you to be consulting review articles (and perhaps some primary sources (i.e. journal articles describing original research) as well) and not relying solely on text books. The UCL library produces a useful document with advice on citations: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/References_and_Plagiarism.pdf What next? Once you have completed your review and annotation of the draft essay, you should send it as an e.mail attachment to its author, copying the message to the module organiser. You must do this by 2359 on Friday 30 November so that the author has time to read the comments before the discussion session. The draft discussion session will be held at 1100 on Monday 3 December. At this session, each pair will discuss their comments and how their essays can be improved. Attendance at this session is mandatory and an attendance list will be taken. You will then rework your draft essay to the final form. The final essay should take into account the comments you have received and will also probably change based on the way your own views have evolved after the exercise of reviewing someone else’s essay. You should submit the completed essay via the Turnitin submission box on the module Moodle page. Note that on final submission each essay will be screened by Turnitin against all the other submitted essays for plagiarism. This is in addition to the usual database screens. You may upload your work at any time prior to the final deadline to check your Turnitin score and so avoid accidental plagiarism The deadline for submission of the final version of the essay is 1700 Monday 14 January 2013. Summary of key dates: 2359 Friday 30 November: Return of the annotated draft to its author and submission to the module organiser 1100 Monday 3 December: Draft discussion session, Malet Place Engineering LT 1.03 Attendance compulsory, attendance will be recorded. 1700 Monday 14 January 2013: Deadline for submission of the final version of the essay via the Turnitin box on the module Moodle site.