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Paxton Retchless

Mr. Ventura

ENG 1540

4 December 2020

Mapping Peer Review Reflection

For English class, I wrote a paper explaining the different sides people take on the issue

of lowering the voting age. The purpose of the assignment was to show each side of the

argument from a point of neutrality so the audience could be informed of the range of positions

and history of the issue. By providing this information, the readers could then form an opinion of

their own. Their opinion could side with one of the positions, a combination of the positions, or

even none of the positions. Writing this paper helped me decide my own informed opinion that I

will utilize in my final research paper.

My paper was reviewed by two peer reviewers. Although I neglected a comment or two,

most of the comments were very helpful. Both of my peer reviewers suggested I elaborate more

on my own stance on the issue. Originally, I only added a brief sentence on my own stance to

avoid interfering with neutrality, but after rereading the assignment sheet, I agreed with my peer

reviewers and elaborated more on my own stance. One of my peer reviewers believed I had a

thesis statement, but the other did not. Since a thesis statement is extremely important for

development, I reworded the thesis statement to make it clearer. I neglected a comment that said

I did not have a representative who supported one of the sides because I included republicans as

the representative. A clear representative is most likely a singular person, but since republicans

are a large, influential group in the United States I decided to include them as the representative,

nonetheless.
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The peer reviewer’s comment about not recognizing my thesis statement will affect my

writing in the future. Thesis statements should be easily recognized by all, so I will work to

ensure I have better developed thesis statements in the future. As a peer reviewer, I have

discovered that assignment sheets can easily be interpreted in different ways by different people.

Although writers may address assignments in different ways, peer reviewers are extremely

helpful in ensuring all the major components of the essay are still addressed.