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ENGL&101 – English Composition I (Online)
Sample Peer Reviewed Summary & Response
The purpose of this document is to serve as a model for the kinds of comments (both in-text and
at the end) that form the content of your peer review. Pay specific attention to how these
comments use terminology from our class and support assertions with examples and
explanation. Remember, you have two goals in peer reviewing your classmates’ work, and it is
important to keep both goals in mind: 1) help improve the essay and 2) display to me, the
instructor, that you have grasped and can apply the course content. This means you should
avoid vague, abstract comments that do not reference any specific aspect of writing that we
have learned so far. Your major responsibility is to address those nine peer review questions on
Peer Review Notes. The following sample addresses many (but not all!) of these questions and
would probably have earned a score of 17 or 18 out of 20 points.
Also, notice how the majority of the in-text comments relate to content rather than grammar or
punctuation, and that when these things are commented on, it’s because the error (whatever it
is) persists throughout the draft. Simple, surface level compliments are avoided. Certainly point
out to your classmate what he or she has done well, but also make sure to explain why or how it
has been done well.
A final note: please avoid commenting along the lines of what you “liked” or “didn’t like.” These
comments risk offending the writer and are most times unhelpful. Be polite—honest, but polite.
[Heading omitted]
[Title omitted]
In “The Boston Photographs”, Nora Ephron breaks down the reactions of news media
after the incident of a woman and her baby falling off of a fire escape of a burning building and
being caught on camera in mid-air. The ideas Ephron brings to the table are that the
photographs were more the subject than the incident itself and the pictures were extremely
effective but pushed the boundaries of what’s appropriate to publish in a public paper. News
media is quite biased and controls what viewers get to see.
Approximately forty years ago, an apartment building caught on fire in Boston
Massachusetts. On the top floor, a mother and her child were trapped and moved out of the
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apartment onto the fire escape for rescue. A fire truck was already on scene and a fireman was
making his way toward the woman and her baby. Just as the fireman was about to grab the
woman, the fire escape broke and woman and baby fell. The woman died on impact and the
baby survived by landing on the woman. The photographer captured 3 photos due to his
camera. The first was of the woman and baby on the fire escape, the second was of the fire
escape breaking and the third was of course of the woman and baby falling.
The essay itself contained lot of quotes of replies to the different aspects of the
incident. Most were about why the photos were published in a newspaper. Why were they
ruled appropriate? Why was the article so famous? “”Invading the privacy of death.” “Cheap
Sensationalism”” (Cohen 155) The responses to these questions varied. Some believed that the
photographs themselves were fine because they never showed a dead body or any blood, they
showed a live woman and a live baby. Others thought that these were almost just as bad and in
a way worse than a photograph of a dead body.
The article was famous mainly because of the pictures. This was sort of a bad reason for
the news story. The news was not that there was a fire and that a woman and baby fell off the
fire escape of a burning building. The news was that a moment as crazy as that moment was
caught on camera. “”A tawdry way to sell newspaper”” (Cohen 155) “The pictures don’t show
anything about slum life; the incident could have happened anywhere, and it did.” (Cohen 158)
The photographs are extremely powerful. Like Nora Ephron says, “it is impossible to
look at them without feeling their extraordinary impact and remembering, in almost a
subconscious way, the morbid fantasy of falling, falling off a building, falling to one’s death.”
(Cohen 155). Horror, terror, death, and reality. Those are the words that describe how I feel
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when I look at those pictures. Photojournalism is much more effective according to Nora
Ephron and these pictures were a loophole to get photos of death published in a paper. They
show death in action, not after. This is much more intense and moving than the aftermath.
Photojournalism is about capturing real life. The photos are to be untouched. No
photoshop or bias or fakes, just an exact image of a situation. Normal journalism on the other
hand almost always contains bias and false interpretation. An edited situation is not honest but
is still always posted and we always read it. The Boston photographs show the situation rather
than telling it. The instant is caught and then put up for interpretation which is what the article
almost accidentally shows. By this I mean that the article wasn’t written to make this statement
but it does. The photos were real and can’t be changed, a recorded moment.
Many of us aren’t okay with the image of death in our daily lives. We all want to be
happy because to most of us, happiness is the point of life. We are all aware that thousands of
people die per day but that’s not something we want to spend our days thinking about. Ephron
and some of the arguments in her article seem to say that this is a form of lying. That we can’t
just ignore the fact that death is existent and occurs all of the time. She believes that readers of
news should receive the news, not some censored dishonest version but the information in its
truest form or else it isn’t really the news.
I have been featured twice in a form of news. Once when I was about 10 and a kid at my
elementary school had cancer. He received chemotherapy and lost his hair. In support, our
school ran an event where other kids or staff members would shave their heads so he didn’t
feel alone and so that baldness didn’t seem so weird. Komo 4 news, our local news station
chose the film this.The amount of time spent in that segment of the news on the child himself
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was less than that of the support. If somebody turned on their TV to see a dying kid they’ll feel
depressed and change the channel to something to that’ll get their mind off it, but if they turn
on their TV to see a bunch of people supporting someone in a bad situation, they’ll feel uplifted
and proud of the human race.
The news is created for the viewers and the more viewers a station gets, the more
successful they are. Human nature has us driven towards things that make us feel good. We are
drawn to the happy side of things because it makes us feel better. So although people watch
the news to stay up to date, they watch it to learn new information without having to
experience it. Nobody would watch the news if it was just videos of 9-11 like situations and live
executions. The news channels know that and appeal to what will make them the most
successful. This can be seen as wrong by some and okay by others.
I don’t think that the Boston Photographs article was so inappropriate that it shouldn’t
have been published. The photos were in sort of a grey area. I do believe that it’s important to
acknowledge the real facts of life, that death exists and occurs daily and life is sad. We should
be aware of this and accept it rather than ignoring it but I also think that we shouldn’t have to
embrace scarring images every time we turn on the TV or open a newspaper. Our minds will
naturally train us to not turn on the TV or subscribe to newspapers because that’s how we’re
wired.
Photojournalism can be very powerful but doesn’t need to always focus on death.
Ephron seems to say that it does because that’s the most powerful image that you can see and
has a lot to do with the news. I agree that the news should be more honest and straightforward
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but not to the point of people not being willing to hear it because that completely ruins the
point. Unbiased information is what we want but if the truth is too harsh, people won’t listen.
Dear [Name omitted],
Thank you for sharing your work. Overall, what interested me most about your draft was the
fact that you had been in the news yourself and the perspective that gave you—I think that
could even be part of your thesis statement, which would give you a more specific response to
Ephron. What confused me, however, was your handling of quotations, none of which were
stepped into or had any context (via paraphrase or analysis). I would certainly read more about
your own experiences in the news. Remember, concrete details are the name of the game! Best
of luck with your revisions.
Sincerely,
[Name omitted]