Ian Dickerman

Reading Response Letter

Dear Class,
This chapter did the subject justice and that is for sure. Responding to a fellow classmates
writing is a very important part of this course as described by Professor Ingram. The purpose of
this course is for each and every student to grow individually as writers, and a big part of that is
getting feedback from peers. They just wrote the same paper and would probably do a better job
of explaining certain things as opposed to the instructor. This chapter does a very good job of
explaining how constructive criticism should be and how to properly revise a peers paper. It
isnt to put someone elses work down, it is to help someone grow as a writer and improve from
where they already are. This doesnt just mean correcting grammar it means correcting ideas and
phrasing and how points come across. Responding is different from proofreading and responding
makes for better writers while proof reading makes for a paper free of spelling errors. The first
option is clearly the better one and is what should be done in peer reviews. If done properly
every paper someone writes should be better than there last but if the papers are just proofread
then the writing wont ever really improve.