How to Critique a Short Paper

Students will reap a greater harvest from the oxford-style seminars the better they weed the garden with helpful
critique and water the soil with accurate praise. Listening to and criticizing a peer’s work, however, can be daunting. The
pitfalls of false praise are fairly easy to avoid, though, and the narrow way of honest critique not so tricky to identify as
you might think. Let’s consider the steps to giving helpful “feedback” to your peers on an orally-delivered paper.

1. Active Listening: believe it or not, receiving something takes work. You won’t catch a pass just letting a football
(or a disc—let’s face it frisbee is cooler) simply fall into your hands. You must meet and grasp what’s flying at
your head, lest it bounce to the ground and you look a fool. Here’s what you do.
a. Anticipate: remind yourself what kind of presentation you are about to hear, what its parts ought to be,
what kind of insights you can expect to gather. For example, the expectations for the paper on scholarly
sources will differ from the paper on how to use a historical document.
b. Engage: Ask yourself questions of understanding related to form and content:
i. What is the central insight?
ii. What evidence is marshalled in its support?
iii. Was there a beginning, middle, and end?
iv. If the presentation is argumentative, where could you identify pathos, logos and ethos?
c. Enjoy: Keep your ears open to interpretive keys, centers of gravity, micro-quotes, and exceptional turns of
phrase. Remember them.

2. Evaluation: At this point you ought to be able to write a three-sentence summary of the paper, or at least a
keyword summary of the paper. You should be asking evaluative questions of the presentation related to the areas
of invention, arrangement, and style.
i. Invention:
1. Did the central insight have depth or merely skim the surface of the ideas in question?
Was the insight three-dimensional or flat?
2. Did the paper and its insight rely substantively on the text in question or merely
ornamentally?
3. Were block quotes or micro-quotes sufficient for the interpretation given or sufficient to
demonstrate a claim?
ii. Arrangement:
1. Structure: Did the paper have a natural, compelling introduction, a discernable body with
a traceable argument or exploration, and a satisfying or challenging conclusion?
2. Transitions: Did the piece strike you as a whole or as a series of parts thrown together
haphazardly? Does it move elegantly from section to section?
3. Paragraphing: Did you notice ideas introduced but not developed, quotes mentioned but
not interpreted? Conclusions made but not founded?
iii. Style:
1. Diction: Did the author choose fresh, vivid, and precise words? Was the presentation
concise? Did the author raise vague, dead-metaphors, hack with wooden phrasing, or
cover lack of argument with generalizing terms?
2. Pathos / ethos: Did the author build these persuasive structures?
3. Pronunciation: did the author stumble on words she ought to have looked up (e.g.,
bourgeoisie)?
4. Grammar: Did paper, the of structure syntax obstruct meaning—thereof.!
3. Delivery:
a. Deliver the critique in the way you would want to receive it—charitably, honestly, accurately, and
according to the soul of wit.
b. Avoid empty praise: “Thanks for a great paper, Grammy, I really liked your introduction”).
c. Avoid empty critiques: “Cap’n Seedorf, make your conclusion better next time.”
d. Choose one substantive praise and criticism.
e. If time allows, a question can also help because it gives the author a sense of what may have been
confusing or incomplete in the paper, or where there’s room for more depth of insight. (E.g., “Mr. Fay, I
wasn’t clear on why you said Hugh of St. Victor thought Christmas was ‘all in the heart.’”)