Virtual Peer Review: Teaching And Learning About Writing In Online Environments

摘要

The process approach to writing, which includes multiple drafts and peer review, is pretty well established in composition and technical communication pedagogy. Yet we tend to take the peer review part of the process largely for granted. It is a black box of sorts; not many people have published papers that reflect upon the process, and a fairly standard repertoire of classroom techniques support it. In face-to-face classes, for example, we tend to ask students to exchange paper drafts, and then answer specific questions designed to help the author improve on the draft, based on rhetorical principles of audience, purpose, and situation. Students often protest that peer review is a waste of time, and teachers also disagree on its value (DiPardo & Freedman, 1987). Yet it is a rare writing teacher who has never used peer review. If it accomplishes nothing else,peer review at least affords students another audience besides the teacher; in addition, it relieves teachers of providing the totality of responses to each student's work and affords a second opinion or support when the writer resists a reader's comments.