Peer Critique
What you’ll do
• Introduce the draft
• Summarize its main points
• Assess and respond to the author’s
presentation
• Offer conclusions about the effectiveness of
the analysis
How to do it
• Read the guidelines from Ch. 4b in the St
Martin’s handbook
• Your crit should be 400-500 words
• Separate your analysis into paragraphs. Do not
just write one big paragraph of text.
• You will critique students from across TTU’s
FYC program
– Look to the essay’s works cited list to determine
what text your peer wrote about. Read that text.
Text for analysis/thesis
• Identify the writer's thesis and then evaluate it for
effectiveness.
• Determine whether the writer has selected a particular
text to analyze and whether or not the thesis indicates
that the writer will complete a rhetorical analysis of the
text.
• Discuss whether the thesis is specific enough and of
appropriate scope for this analysis.
– For example, a thesis that states that an author uses ethos,
pathos, and logos in their text is NOT specific enough for a
rhetorical analysis. Explain why or why not, and provide
suggestions for the writer to help improve the thesis, if
necessary.
Quality and Specificity of Analysis
• Evaluate the writer’s analysis.
• Does the writer select specific quotations from
the text to discuss? What are these quotations,
and what does the writer have to say about
them?
• Does the writer seem to effectively analyze, or
does the draft read more as a summary or
paraphrasing of parts of the text being analyzed,
or does the writer end up arguing about the
content, rather than the structure and
presentation of the text?
Overall Essay Structure
• Comment on the overall structure of the
essay.
– For example, explain in detail whether or not the
paragraphs are presented in a logical and
persuasive way. Does the writer provide a clear
introduction, body and conclusion? Does each
paragraph begin with a clear topic sentence and
transition into the next paragraph?
– Provide examples that are particularly effective or
areas that need more improvement.
Rosen in “Virtual Friendship and the New
Narcissism” gives an insightful look into social
networking, through different devices varying
from ethos, pathos and logos. Rosen used these
devices to explain the main concepts such as
status-seeking, the new taxonomy of friendship,
making connections and others, and how social
networking has had an impact in the lives of
people variously.
Michael Pollan’s article, “Wendell Berry’s Wisdom,”
was published on September 2, 2009 in response to
the then-growing organic food trend that took hold
when Michelle Obama created an organic garden on
the White House grounds. Pollan appears to have
taken notice of this new movement that was becoming
popular in America; even the New York Times
appeared to have noticed and when covering the
emergence of the trend, its cover story article asked
“Is a Food Revolution Now in Season?” Instead of
celebrating about the trend’s emergence in his article,
Pollan takes a different view of this new “food
revolution,” arguing such a discussion of organic food
instead started in the 1970s, well before 2009 (Pollan).
Pollan mainly uses ethos along with other rhetorical
devices to help support the main argument
throughout his article.
The digital age has helped spawn a whole cultural movement
as well as a world-wide phenomenon that has become a
touchy subject for debate and controversy; social networks the
tool in which helps users communicate via online. With the
advent of social networks such as Friendster, MySpace, and the
behemoth of them all, Facebook. Each social network has
made a huge ding in the way society goes about with
communication in the world today. In the article "Virtual
Friendship and the New Narcissism", written by Christen
Rosen, she claims that social networks have stifled personal
interactions by causing an unhealthy interaction between two
or more people, having one-on-one interaction a
depersonalized activity and has evolved into a distanced
interaction. Rosen backs her claims using a variety of creditable
sources from researches and users of social networks, powerful
analogy, and irony to help the reader into an enlightenment
and realization of the drawbacks to online interaction and the
harm it is potentially of causing in the process.
Healthy eating and ecological farming are
becoming favored issues in the United States.
There are a number of articles that cover these
topics. As an excellent author, journalist, and
Professor of Journalism at the University of
California, Michael Pollan discusses food and
farming in his article “Wendell Berry’s Wisdom”,
which was published in “The Nation”. Pollan
argues that food and farming are the national
conversation within the United States. Also,
Pollan promotes this national information by
making ethical, emotional, and logical appeals to
his readers.
The success of online social networks has captured
the eye of Christine Rosen and many folks in the past
decade. With the invention of MySpace, Facebook,
and other social networking sites, Christine Rosen
argues that the online community has expanded
immensely creating new social norms that have
impacted behavior of many individuals. In the didactic
article “Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism,”
Christine Rosen utilizes concrete logical literature, well
researched excerpts, and perpetual persuasion to
support her theories with established credibility and
drift readers towards her idea that the new
evolutionary practice of virtual communication
through social networking sites is a rapidly developing
system that has become widely accepted all over the
world.
One more note…
• If one of the following describes you, you
need to see me immediately after class:
– You’ve never logged into Raiderwriter
– You’ve never turned in any assignments
– You haven’t turned in an assignment since BA3