PEER EDITING lotting paper

							                               PEER EDITING FOR
                              THE RESEARCH PAPER

AUTHOR’S NAME (paper you are editing): ___________________________________


EDITOR’S NAME (your name): ____________________________________________

 MAKE ALL CHANGES DIRECTLY ON THE AUTHOR’S RESEARCH PAPER!
                    IF AT ANY POINT YOUR AUTHOR IS MISSING
          PART OF THEIR RESEARCH PAPER, YOU MUST STOP EDITING
    AND RETURN IT TO THEM TO FINISH BEFORE YOU CONTINUE TO EDIT
***Note to the author: your peer editor will be writing A LOT on your paper! Some of
the writing is to show ME that THEY took time to really edit your paper. The OTHER
changes are to help you in your format, conventions, grammar and spelling, and
organization. Most of the changes, you should PROBABLY follow—but there may be
some changes that you disagree with. If you have questions, please talk to me, and I will
try to help you decide what to do.
              REMEMBER, YOU want to edit this paper as BEST as possible
 to help your PARTNER get an “A”—your PARTNER is trying to do the same for YOU!
PART ONE: FIVE PARAGRAPH ESSAY FORMAT

1. Look at the INTRODUCTION. It MUST have a specific order:

              Grabber Lead THEN         Focus Question THEN        Thesis Statement


      Grabber Lead: did your partner use               (circle one)
             Incident (true or made up)   What if/Imagine if    Statistic

              Negative Statement Followed By A Positive            Question


         *(If your partner happened to use any statistics or examples
                        from a source in their grabber lead,
MAKE SURE that it is cited properly. If it is NOT cited, it is PLAGIARISM! = ZERO)

      Is there a FOCUS QUESTION right after the grabber lead?
               UNDERLINE IT ON THE PAPER

      RIGHT after the focus question, is there a THESIS STATEMENT?
            UNDERLINE it…it should be the LAST sentence of the introduction.

**Your partner may have chosen to insert some additional background information or
definitions in the introduction. Please make sure that it is BETWEEN the Grabber Lead
and the Focus Question—and NO WHERE ELSE!
2. Look at the BODY PARAGRAPHS. Compare EACH to the thesis statement.
                  Everything needs to follow the thesis statement.

       You need to look at EACH of the TOPIC SENTENCES (first sentences)

      Do each of the body paragraph TOPIC SENTENCES have a general statement
       about what the ENTIRE paragraph contains?

      The TOPIC SENTENCE should not be a citation from a source—but an overview
       of the paragraph.

      Do the body paragraphs make sense (in order) of how YOU would like to read
       about this topic?
               **For example, they are not telling you about the EFFECTS without first
               explaining the causes

-WRITE what the TOPIC (or main focus) is of each paragraph (1-2 words) on the side of
the paragraph.

-UNDERLINE the entire TOPIC SENTENCE (first sentence) of EVERY body paragraph

-Write the TOTAL number of BODY PARAGRAPHS somewhere in the margins!


3. Citations make your research paper credible. Someone else gathered the statistics
   about your topic, and THEY deserve credit for it!]
     You should have TWENTY-FIVE specific details (citations) in EACH of your
       body paragraphs.
               -Circle each citation that is in the research paper. (the parenthesis part)
               -Write the number of citations on the LEFT SIDE of each paragraph.
                There should be 25 of them total.

      Transition sentences are what make your research paper YOUR OWN. Without
       them, you are just quoting from a bunch of different sources. You do NOT have
       to have a transition sentence between each of your citations, but you do need to
       have your paragraph FLOW (make sense) from sentence to sentence and then
       transition to the next paragraph without just giving the reader a bunch of numbers.
               -Read the body paragraphs and make sure that it flows together.

(Those transition sentences you just read are REALLY what make your grade on your
research paper. You may have ALL of your citations, but if it does not make sense to
me—if I am just reading a bunch of numbers and it does not relate to your topic sentence,
then you CANNOT get a good grade on your research paper.)

       -PLEASE look over the body paragraphs again to make sure that it makes sense to
        you as a reader as well.
        -Can they maybe explain a quote/citation a little bit better by giving an example to
          the reader?
--Does your author stick to the SAME point/topic throughout each of the body
  paragraphs?
--All statistics MUST be relevant to the topic sentence of that paragraph.

(Write some comments to your partner about this on their paper…)

________________________________________________________________________

4. Look at the CONCLUSION PARAGRAPH.

       -Does the first sentence RE-STATE the THESIS without using the EXACT same
        words?

       **Underline the topic sentence (re-stated thesis).
         Re-word it if necessary to make it more creative.

       -Do each of the following sentences REINFORCE the ideas from the main body
        paragraphs?

       -Either re-stating them in the same order
                           OR
       -Summarizing the highlights of the paper?

       ***You will want to refer back to the body paragraphs’ TOPIC SENTENCES or
       the GENERAL TOPIC you wrote NEXT to the paragraph to determine if they did

**The author can state some more things about their topic after these sentences.**

       Does the author end the paper by making a strong statement?
       CIRCLE THE LAST SENTENCE

Good examples are:
            -It is time to stop or We need to stop or rethink…
            -Everyone needs to decide for themselves how to solve the problem of…
            -The best conclusion from this research is to…
PART TWO: RESEARCH PAPER CONVENTIONS

1. Citations make the research paper a research paper instead of just your ideas, and they
   have to be cited properly or you could lose points or even get a ZERO for plagiarizing.

      Make sure every citation is CITED properly.
              -EVERY citation from a source should have parenthesis after it.
              -If they DIRECTLY quoted the source (copied word-for-word from the
              page, it should be in quotes—and the quotes end BEFORE the parenthesis.
      The period goes AFTER the parenthesis.             (             ).

               -For a book, magazine, interview, or web site with multiple pages:
                       -There should be the author’s LAST NAME and PAGE NUMBER
                                                     (Wargowsky 56).
               -For a web site without an author
                       -There should be whatever comes first on the WORKS CITED
                        page for that source (probably the title)

               **Use the first few words…           (What is Causing 29).

***Are there any sentences in the paper that SHOULD be cited, and they are NOT cited?
   Check CAREFULLY—your paper could get a ZERO for just one instance of
   plagiarizing a source.
2. Every research paper has a WORKS CITED page, where you give credit to every
   author who contributed to your research process—whether or not you used their
   information IN the paper.

       Check to make sure that your partner created this page as their LAST page.

      Their LAST NAME and PAGE NUMBER should be at the top RIGHT

                                                                            Wargowsky 12

      WORKS CITED (at the TOP and CENTERED—can be up to 18 point font only)

3. Look over the works cited page VERY carefully.
   There has to be AT LEAST five sources listed (these are 12 point font).

       -Check that every source is in ALPHABETICAL ORDER—look down the left
       side and check that the first letter of every word on each line follows this order
       -EVERYTHING should be double-spaced!


THIS PART SHOULD TAKE AWHILE. CHECK FOR EVERY PERIOD, COMMA,
ETC.---and FOR EVERYTHING TO BE IN ORDER.

Web Page:
Last Name, First Name. “Title of Web Page.” Web Site Title. Date it was posted.

       Web Site Organization. Date you found it. <web site address>.

Wargowsky, Carianne. “Research Papers are Fun.” Research World. 1 November 2007.

       Wargowsky International. 16 November 2007. <www.wargowsky.com>.

*If they used other sources, PLEASE SEE ME or refer to your STYLE GUIDE.
PART THREE: Proofreading and General Writing Conventions

PART FOUR: Organization

In this section you want to go through the ENTIRE research paper again to look for
mistakes in grammar and spelling and to make it an overall well-written paper.

You may already feel as though you understand this person’s ENTIRE research paper—
or maybe by now you are just sick of reading it whether it is a good/interesting paper or
not.

REMEMBER your goal as a PEER EDITOR is to HELP this person to get an “A” on this
paper, knowing that YOUR peer editor is trying to do the same for you.
At the same time, realize that I will be reading over 100 of these research papers—some
of which will cover the same topic.

      How can you make this paper more interesting for ME to read?
      How can you help to improve this person’s writing style and their grammar and
       spelling mistakes?

LOOK FOR:
check to make sure you searched for each one and make changes on the paper too!

SPELLING ERRORS ___          PUNCTUATION ERRORS ___             CAPITALIZATION ___

CONTRACTIONS ___          SENTENCE FRAGMENTS ___ RUN-ON SENTENCES ___

DOUBLE-SPACING ___            12 POINT FONT ___              TIMES NEW ROMAN ___

NO “YOU” (except in the introduction) ___ (if they do, please circle it EVERY time)

PROPER RULES FOR WRITING NUMBERS ___ (one through ten should be written)

NO TITLE OR SUB HEADINGS ON ACTUAL PAPER ___

CORRECT ORDER (cover page, research paper, works cited page) ___

GENERAL SPACING (not adding extra spaces to make paper look longer) ___

***You have THREE peer editing days—use them to help your writing partner as much
as possible and then you can go on to type your final copy.

     READ THEIR ENTIRE PAPER AGAIN AND WRITE COMMENTS
           ON THE SIDES OR END OF IT TO HELP THEM
  GRADE YOU WOULD GIVE (CIRCLE ONE: 5      10   15 20 25)
STRUCTURE
   1.
      A. Essay has exactly FIVE paragraphs         1   2   3   4   5
      B. The Introduction has a Grabber Lead       1   2   3   4   5
      C. The Introduction has a Focus Question     1   2   3   4   5
      D. The Introduction has a Thesis (3 parts)   1   2   3   4   5