Peer review sheet for 3ResProj

Dr. Archibald’s ENGL 110

Peer Editing Process: The 3Research Project

Reviewers name: __________________________________

Paper author’s name: _______________________________

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Has the writer written a research paper . . .

[medium]
__that joins a conversation (where there is a controversy), that listens to others who have been talking about the topic (old and new docs & sources), and then posits a unique idea(s) in an effort to extend the discussion?
__Or, is the paper substantially a report (a "data-dump") of what others have said?
__Or, is it an extended opinion piece that gives no support for the writer's ideas?
__Or, is it merely plagiarized? (this item trumps everything else and results in an "F" in the course.
Comment:

[opening & introduction]
__that contains an opening to the paper that hooks the reader and introduces the writer and his/her purpose for writing the essay? Is there a forecast of what the paper will contain?
Comment:

[use of research question & thesis]
__where they employ their research question that then is answered in a thesis and set forward in the paper?
Comment:

[use of sources]
__where the writer introduce his/her sources, summarize, paraphrase, and/or quote them, and then provide a comment for each one that advances their thesis?

[paragraph construction]
__that contains an argument that flows--claim, support, result?
Comment:

[conclusion]
__that contains a conclusion that works to sum up or extend the ideas of the paper?
Comment:

[works cited and in-text citations]
__that contains well integrated sources, a Works Cited page, and In-text citations conform to the MLA format?
Comment:

[sentence-level rhetoric]
__where the writer has edited the paper carefully for grammatical and punctuation errors?
Comment:

Presentation

1. View this video on creating effective PowerPoint presentations:

2. Here is the Presentation Rubric:

Grading Rubric
Total pts: 20	Excellent (4pts)	Good (3pts)	Fair (2pts)	Poor (1pts)
Title Slide	Excellent Title Slide lists the title, your name, presentation title, any important information AND is formatted correctly.	Good Title Slide lists most of the required elements and is formatted correctly.	Fair Title Slide lists some of the required elements Or is not formatted correctly.	Poor Title slide is missing most required elements AND is not formatted correctly.
Intro, Body, Conclusion Slides	Excellent 10 required slides with relevant information. Speaker is well informed and elaborates beyond the displayed material.	Good 8 required slides with relevant information. Speaker is well informed and elaborates a bit beyond the material displayed.	Fair 6 required slides with relevant information. Speaker brings little knowledge to the presentation beyond what is displayed	Poor 5 or fewer slides OR slides do not contain relevant information. Speaker simply reads the material displayed.
Powerpoint/Graphics	Excellent Slides are attractive. Text is in 30pt font and legible. No grammatical errors. Graphics and effects are used throughout to enhance presentation. Information is at an advanced level and consistently supports images.	Good Text is in 30pt font and legible. No grammatical errors. More than half of the slides use graphics and effects to enhance presentation. Information adequately supports images.	Fair Slides are legible. Amount of text is too great for the amount of space provided. Some grammatical errors. Less than half the slides have graphics or effects. Information supports images at times.	Poor The slides are not legible. The amount of text is too great for the space provided. There are several grammatical errors. There is little use of graphics or effects. The information does not consistently support images.
Presentation	Excellent The presentation is well coordinated. All material is presented using language that is original. It does not appear written down. Student speaks in a clear voice and varies from slides; does not simply read from slide	Good The presentation is well coordinated. Most material is presented in original language and not as it is written on the screen or page. Speaks directly to audience.	Fair The presenter makes minimal eye contact with the audience. Everything is read directly from the screen or page.	Poor The presenter makes no contact with the audience. Everything is read directly from the screen or page.
Citations	Excellent Sources of information are properly cited in a concluding slide so that the audience can determine the credibility and authority of the information presented.	Good Most sources of information use proper citation and sources are documented in a concluding slide to make it possible to check on the accuracy of information.	Fair Sometimes copyright guidelines are followed and some information, photos and graphics are not properly cited in a concluding slide.	Poor No copyright guidelines are followed and some information, photos and graphics do not use proper citations. No concluding citation slide.

Adapted from Rcampus: http://www.rcampus.com/rubricshowc.cfm?sp=yes&code=A466X2&

3. See this page for information on citing images and copyright.

Research Paper Beginnings

This is from John McPhee: "Leads . . . are flashlights that shine down into the story.” In our case we want to substitute research paper for story. And the lead is what he means by what begins the paper. There are many different ways to begin. Here are a number of them:

Anecdote: Think of a little story that nicely frames what your paper is about, as does a lead about some figure from the Freedom Riders who became a professor at a prestigious university.

Scene: Begin by giving your readers a look at some revealing aspect of your topic. A paper on how tropical rain forests function as ecological filters might begin with a description of what the land looks like after loggers or surface miners have left it.

Profile: Try introducing someone who is important to your topic. For instance, if you are writing about “heart” in sports you might start by talking about Joe Frazier, the fighter who has died recently.

Background: Maybe you could begin by providing important and possibly surprising background information about your topic. A paper on steroid use in sports might start by citing the explosive growth in use by high school athletes in the last 10 years.

Quotation: Sometimes, you encounter a great quote that beautifully captures the question that your paper will explore or the direction it will take.

Dialogue: Open with dialog between people involved in your topic.

Question: Pointedly ask your readers the question that launched your research or the questions your readers might raise about your topic.

Contrast: Try a lead that compares two apparently unlike things that highlight the problem or dilemma the paper will explore. Say you are a car enthusiast but your topic area is MU/local. Introduce your paper by telling us about a car show you went to and how old fashion values that are described in the commencement addresses are demonstrated in the cars you love.

Announcement: Sometimes the most appropriate lead that announces what the papers about. Though such openings are sometimes not particularly compelling, they are direct. A paper with a complex topic or focus may be well served by simply stating in the beginning the main idea you will explore and what plan you will follow.

--adapted from Ballenger, Bruce. The Curious Researcher: A Guide to Writing Research Papers. New York: Pearson. 2012.

Google search

Take a look at this presentation of how to search using Google:

The Research paper

Go to the Purdue OWL and read through their links with regard to the research paper. Post your comment to this blog post.

Revising the 2Synthesis paper

In what follows, I explain the connection between the three papers in the course: the 1Report, 2Synthesis, and the 3Research paper. Then I give an example of the synthesis process you should use when writing the 2Syn paper. Finally, I talk about the 2Syn first draft, suggest an organizational pattern for the paper, and give ways to revise and edit your paper for the final draft.

The 2Synthesis paper is a necessary link between the 1Report assignment where you investigated a primary document to arrive at a sense of what the conversation about that topic starting more than 100 years ago--an arbitrary point, to be sure, but a point where our modern world was just appearing. You could see us from there, so to speak. With the 2Syn paper you are attempting to formulate a topic for the 3Research paper which we will start next.

The 2Syn paper is a process paper of sorts. You are asked to take a more modern document in the same topic conversation and read it in terms of the primary document you started with in the 1Report assignment.

A simple way to look at the process of synthesis is to take an idea that both documents are talking about and come up with a third, forth, fifth idea based on those two versions of the idea. I say versions because even though the two documents talk about money and sports, diet, racial discrimination, the nature of serial killing and so forth, they are talking about it in very different ways. You must let these different ways of talking about your topic spark new ideas that you will acknowledge in the 2Syn paper and then take as your research topic in the 3Research paper. Let me give you an example of the synthesis process.

“The challenge is to synthesize information from your research to develop [new] ideas about your topic and then to support those ideas.” –from Synthesizing Ideas

Basic synthesis formula: In the new document, the author discusses X, while the old document also explains X but somewhat differently. When these two versions of X are set side-by-side, I infer from them that . . . [add your new idea here--the product of synthesizing X as it appears in the old and new documents].

Ex. 1:

The comparison: The transcript of the Joe Jackson trial reveals the way money can corrupt sports figures and the game of baseball in general. Here is an example of what I mean. Jackson says: “ . . . . “ The Lewis document about Billy Bean and the A’s also illustrates the power of money when it comes to sports. Lewis illustrates this more prominently, when he explains that Bean “ . . . . “ The difference is that Bean found a legitimate way to work with very little money in an attempt to achieve the same results that more wealthy teams had when it came to hiring and keeping good players. The Black Sox players simply tried to cheat their way to success—success measured in wealth.

The synthesis: These two examples of the influence of money on sports shows how the game of baseball suffers from the tendency by owners and coaches (and some players) to fixate on the money instead of on the pleasure and passion of the players and the fans [synthesis thesis]. In the end, there might not be any way around the power money has to influence sports since no one is going to play at the major-league level for free and the fans want the best team money can buy because they know that’s the only way to win.

Organizing pattern for the 2Syn paper:

1. Introduce the synthesis topic (what the paper is about i.e., How the two documents go together).
2. Give a short summary of the two documents.
3. Provide a forecast of the paper - say what ideas the writer will be working with.
4. State the thesis concerning the ideas under synthesize.
5. Work out each of the ideas in the synthesize (in separate paragraphs) in accordance with the thesis while giving support for the argument by quoting from each of the documents.
6. Write a conclusion that restates the thesis in a different way that indicates what the writer has learned by writing the paper.

Revision

• The paper needs to be about the ideas contained in the documents and not simply about the topic or the writers.
• The synthesis thesis must reflect the process—how comparison and contrast of ideas lead to other ideas. In other words, what new knowledge becomes available when reading the two documents together? What new insights occur for you?
• The ideas you want to use from the documents need to be supported with quotes from the documents (see the synthesis process example above).

Beginnings: Here is an example of how you might begin your essay

• Start: Race has been a contentious factor for as long as the US has been a country and even before. . . . In order to begin to understand what Race means in the US, this paper wishes to present/study/interrogate/analyze some of the ideas on Race found in two very different documents: X and Y.
• [A short summary of each document follows.]
• Forecast: It is our hope that studying these documents will lead to new ideas about the way we view Race in this country. But first we have to see what the documents under review say. The ideas the paper will consider include X, Y and Z. These ideas will be pulled from each document and looked at for their similarities and differences. The result of this process will be new ideas, such as . . . that will then be explored and evaluated. [Note: This paragraph should be written as one of the last things you do in the paper because you can’t forecast something that you haven’t already written.]

Editing:

A sheet on integrating sources into your paper: Integrating sources

Always (in MLA format) refer to what the document says in the present tense. In other words, “the new document says X.” However, if you refer to the writer of the document, then you put it in past tense: “Ida B. Wells explained X to her readers.”

Magazines and books are italicized. Articles are put in quotation marks.

Don’t put ellipsis [. . .] at the beginning or end of a quotation. Use an ellipsis to indicate what has been removed from inside the quotation.

Peer Review Sheet for the 2Syn Paper

Peer Review for the 2Syn paper

When you look at your group member’s paper consider these Higher Order Concerns (HOCs)

Thesis or focus:

• Does the paper have a central thesis?

Audience and purpose:

• Does the paper have an appropriate audience in mind? Can you describe them?
• Does the paper have a clear purpose for the paper? What is it intended to do or accomplish?
• Why would someone want to read this paper?

Organization:

• Does the paper progress in an organized, logical way?
• At the end of each paragraph, can you forecast where the paper is headed? If the paper goes in a direction other than the one forecasted by the reader, is there a good reason, or do the paragraphs need to be re-written? Give some suggestions.

Development:

• Are there places in the paper where more details, examples, or specifics are needed?
• Do any paragraphs seem much shorter and in need of more material than others?

Adapted from the Purdue OWL: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/690/01/