SP1541 Peer Review: Feedback Form
Peer Review
You are expected to demonstrate a good balance of comments (weaknesses and strengths)
which are justified by textual examples, and provide specific and constructive suggestions for
revision purposes.
Assessment criteria
Context and the Reported Study
1. The explanations of the
context and reported study are
appropriately tailored to the
assumed knowledge base of
potential readers through
explanatory strategies,
suitable and sufficient
information, and appropriate
word choice.
Both key and supplementary
concepts are clear to non-
specialist readers.
2. All ideas are presented
coherently and logically. The
flow of ideas establishes the
connection between the
study’s rationale and the key
finding introduced in Move 1.
Links between ideas are
always explicit, and achieved
through a range of cohesive
devices (e.g. determiners,
conjunction phrases,
synonyms, repetition, and
transitional words).
1 | Centre for English Language Communication, National University of Singapore.
Focus Comments
 Specify any Terms like Quantum field theory (QFT),
explanatory Standard Model, general relativity were
strategies and clearly explained to help readers
comment on their understand the technical terms. However,
effectiveness. the sentence could have been broken down
 Specify if the to shorter sentences as it is quite a lot to
information is take in with many terms being thrown in at
sufficient or needs to once. (Run-on sentence).
be refined.
Author tried to give an example to explain
the concept of renormalization, however,
the example is rather abstract. I am still
confused what this concept is exactly, the
concept of infinity might also confuse
certain audiences.
Certain concepts were not explained like:
Planck length , Lattice space, “Fixed nodes
instead of being continuous”, Deformation
parameter
Generally there were too many technical
terms to break down, while this topic might
be a dry and complex one, author can try
breaking it down to bite-sizes and leave out
unnecessary information without quoting a
term every few lines.
 Specify any missing Key finding was clearly stated in the heading
links between ideas however it can be a little wordy and does
that slows down your not capture the attention of potential
comprehension. audience. A more exciting heading could
 Specify any cohesive have be used and elaborated further with a
devices and lead. The heading was subsequently
comment on their repeated in the first paragraph which is
effectiveness. unnecessary.
“It should be obvious that a non-
renormalizable QFTs are problematic”,
actually it isn’t. I’m confused at what this
sentence was trying to convey.
SP1541 Peer Review: Feedback Form
Assessment criteria
3. The writing is fluent; the
author shows good control of
language use with few
sporadic grammar/syntax
errors occurring only as ‘slips'.
Significance of the Key Finding
4. The implication of the key
finding and/or how the
reported study advances the
field is highly specific and
clearly links to the context
of the study.
Readers clearly understand
why this study is ‘significant’ to
the field and multiple
2 | Centre for English Language Communication, National University of Singapore.
Focus Comments
Links between ideas were not explicit as I’m
generally left confused from one paragraph
to another. Choice of conjunctions were
appropriate like “However”. For the earlier
paragraphs, it seems like the author was just
jumping from one theory to another without
any clear linkage between explanations.
 Specify any errors in There was little to no grammatical errors.
grammar or syntax
(sentence sentence)
that may hinder
meaning.
 Specify any Implications of studies were clearly stated in
implication of the the second paragraph, this study help unite
study needs to be all current theories for physicists under a
refined. single framework.
However, since most of the concepts are
really confusing and not sufficiently broken
down, it’s easy to lose sight of the
implications as the audience reads.
SP1541 Peer Review: Feedback Form
Assessment criteria
stakeholders.
5. The author evaluates the
finding effectively by
providing sufficient evidence
and logical explanation.
6. The significance of the
finding is appropriately
appraised with balanced
views and effective use of
evaluative language for the
context of evaluation.
3 | Centre for English Language Communication, National University of Singapore.
Focus Comments
The test results conclusions were clearly
stated in the end and the implications it has
for the future and other developments.
(Theory of everything, new inventions)
 Specify any evidence The author can seek to provide more
and explanations explanations of certain concepts instead of
needs to be refined. explaining more concepts. (More quality).
Key concepts like renormalization should be
focused on since it is part of the key finding.
Results could have been explained more
clearly. “They found out that in…. the
deformation parameter is positive”,
sentence like this are confusing as the
audience does not know what positive, zero
or negative readings represent and how
does that help them in concluding the test.
 Specify any examples The author demonstrated the limitations of
of (un) balanced the study towards the end and showed how
appraisals and this study could be used in the future. It is
evaluative language an effective conclusion with balanced
and comment on evaluations.
their effectiveness.
SP1541 Peer Review: Feedback Form

Assessment criteria Focus Comments

Reader Engagement

7. The writing style
/tone/register (including
citation) is always
appropriate to the popular
science news genre.
 Specify any examples Tone of the article is rather unfriendly and
of writing style/ not appropriate for the science news article
tone/register and genre. The use of the word conjecture in “To
comment on its test their conjecture…” might be overboard,
effectiveness. a simpler term could have been used.

8. The author successfully
employs appeals to entice
the readers to read the
article.
 Specify appeals and The was no attempt in using both
comment on their deontological nor teleological appeal. The
effectiveness. author can attempt to do so at the start of
the article to capture the reader attention.
Alternatively, the author could show how
this new finding might impact the public in
anyway by elaborating on the “new
inventions” mentioned.

9. The author consistently  Specify any examples There was no dialogic involvement with the
shows dialogic involvement of language readers throughout the article. The author
and immediacy with readers features that could try to engage them by asking question
through a wide range of demonstrate during the analogy to describe the technical
language features such as dialogic concepts since this is a rather dry and
use of questions, pronouns, involvement and complex topic.
unexpectedness, and asides. comment on their
effectiveness.

Key features of the writing style include:

4 | Centre for English Language Communication, National University of Singapore.

SP1541 Peer Review: Feedback Form

 Sentence structure (long and complex sentences vs. short and simple sentences)
 Personal pronouns (third person plural 'they' vs. first person plural 'we' and second person
'you')
 Tone (professional and official vs. personal and friendly)
 Vocabulary (formal vocabulary vs. informal vocabulary & phrasal verbs)
 Voice (passive voice vs. active voice)

5 | Centre for English Language Communication, National University of Singapore.