PEER REVIEW TEMPLATE AND EXAMPLE:
Peer Review for Literary Research Essay
Prof. Scanlan
[Copy and Paste these questions into a comment for the essay 3 draft you wish to peer review, then after reading the draft carefully, answer these questions as fully as you can. Please remember to be helpful, suggestive, and curious rather than overly critical]
- Does the student state the story title and author in the first paragraph? Yes/No
- What characters does the student examine?
- What scene(s) does the student examine?
- What type of ethics does the writer examine?
- What is the writer’s thesis and method? (It is okay to paste it in)
- How many peer reviewed articles/chapters does the writer use?
- Does the writer quote from the peer reviewed articles/chapters? Be specific.
- Are the peer reviewed articles/chapters part of the writer’s thesis?
- Cut and paste two of the most confusing sentences and explain why they are confusing.
Example: Please feel free to use some suggestive phrases and the helpful/encouraging tone.
1. Does the student state the story title and author in the first paragraph? Yes/No
Yes
2. Which characters does the student examine?
Sean examines the boy’s parents, the soldier who finds the boy/man, and the kidnapped man.
3. What scene(s) does the student examine?
The writer (Sean) examines the moment when the man remembers where he hid his horn knife in the fireplace. In addition, Sean examines the narrator’s speculation at the end of the story, which doesn’t make the narrator seem very nice—but that is important for the ethics.
4. What type of ethics does the writer examine?
Sean examines Global Ethics, especially the idea of colonization and the unfair treatment of different cultures.
5. What is the writer’s thesis and method? (It is okay to paste it in)
Sean’s thesis is: “While the obvious choice is to pursue virtue ethics in Borges’s “The Captive,” a less well-known choice is Global Ethics. The reason that Global Ethics is more rewarding is because the setting and context of the story point to Spanish colonization of Argentina in the late 1700s and that sets up the double kidnapping in the story. In order to explore Global Ethics, I will first address the question of who is to blame in the two kidnapping scenes in terms of Global Ethics using the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Second, I will use the ideas of Ed Folsom and Barbara EcksteinEckstein (student should provide article/chapter titles) to discuss storytelling, stereotypes, and violence in colonial fiction (as these ideas relate to the story’s ethics). Lastly, I will question the mysterious narrator who seems to come alive in the story’s conclusion.”
6. How many peer reviewed articles/chapters does the writer use?
Sean uses one peer reviewed article (by Ed Folsom) and one peer reviewed book chapter (by Barbara Eckstein).
7. Does the writer quote from the peer reviewed articles/chapters? Be specific.
Yes. Sean uses Ed Folsom’s article to make a good point about global fiction as it relates to violence and global ethics. He uses Barbara Eckstein’s book chapter to provide evidence that the boy/man’s return to his newer indigenous family supports the idea that the narrator believes that this is the most ethical choice, even though the original parents are harmed.
8. Are the peer reviewed articles/chapters part of the writer’s thesis?
Sean does refer to both Ed Folsom and Barbara Eckstein. The two authors are not discussed that much in the thesis. Maybe this is okay, but I was wondering how they were different from each other.
9. Cut and paste two of the most confusing sentences and explain why they are confusing.
Sentence 1: “Ed Folsom suggests that short stories about colonization are “backwards looking and deploy a way of training readers to replicate negative stereotypes” (46), but I think they really about the present.”
This sentence confuses me because Sean does not explain why these historical stories are about present. Also, I was hoping that Sean could explain more about what Folsom means by “replicate negative stereotypes.” I sort of think this is right, but I would like more explanation.
Sentence 2: “As you can see from this comparison of two scholars of global ethics, the ways that families treat their children are always going to harm.”
This sentence was confusing to me for two reasons. First, I think the sentence was not quite finished—I felt that there were more coming after the word “harm.” Who was going to get harmed? Second, I was confused because the two authors do not really discuss children that much, the two discuss war and violence more. Maybe one or two more sentences discussing the connection between war and the story would help.
***This was a great draft. Thanks for allowing me to review it!
-Reviewer’s name
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