CRITIQUES

1. CRITIQUES Tips for Success

2. Resources • Chapters 4b-4d in your handbook. • The comments you’ve received on previous BAs and your Lit Review (if you have it back yet). • Your common sense and goodness as a human being.

3. KEEP IN MIND . . .

4. Be Consistent • You can approach this two ways. There are costs and benefits for each approach. • You can address the writer. • “You should do this.” “ You might try this.” • More personal and sympathetic • But, you might come off as condescending • You can address the grader. • “The writer should do this.” “The writer should try this.” • Less personal, but more professional. • You might come off as robotic or uncaring • Choose one style, and don’t deviate!

5. Be Grammatically Correct • The writer/student = him/her or s/he, not THEY • A singular subject deserves a singular pronoun. • NO: While the writer has been specific in their thesis sentence, they need to revise for clarity. • YES: While the writer has been specific in his/her thesis sentence, s/he needs to revise for clarity.

6. Be Kind • Avoid sarcasm. It doesn’t translate on the page. • Avoid mechanical language. Don’t talk like a robot. Talk like you, but remain professional. • Tell the student what s/he did well. • You’ve been there. Sympathize. • I also have trouble with thesis statements, but I try to remember that ___________. • Focusing on the topic itself is an easy mistake, especially since we’ve been writing research papers and book reports our whole academic careers.

7. Be Helpful • Offer suggestions for improvement. • Rewrite phrases and/or sentences that don’t make sense or use awkward sentence constructions. • Rewrite the thesis, if applicable, or ask pertinent questions to spur the writer toward revision. • Your thesis could be a bit more specific. You might include some of these “trends” that you mention. What changes have occurred over time in the research? • Show him/her what an effective topic sentence looks like. • Our instructor really emphasized that topic sentences should focus on relationships between scholars and/or research. You might try focusing on relationships here, rather than individual scholars.

8. Be Specific • Quote from the handbook, the textbook, or the student’s own work to support your claims. • Use proper quote format, but you don’t need to cite. • Give a mini-lesson, if applicable. But don’t be condescending! • Chapter 16 in our handbook was really helpful to me regarding MLA citations. I have trouble remembering that the citation goes before the period, but after the quotation marks. It seems you’re making the same mistake here. • If the draft lacks organization, show the student how to re-organize. • While you’re making some good points here, your draft seems a little unorganized. It might be helpful if you move the second paragraph up a bit and then, in your intro, set up the debate a little more clearly. • If the draft lacks clarify, rewrite the sentence for him/her or guess at what s/he is trying to say. • I think you’re trying to say that __________, bur your wording here is a little unclear. You might omit the words “______” to make the sentence more concise.

9. Be Organized • This is an essay. You need a thesis that: • points out what the student does well, then • identifies two or three main issues that need work. • Each paragraph should address one of these issues, plus anything applicable in the RW prompt. Make sure you work in your answers to each RW question.

10. Overall . . . • Your goal is to be helpful, not to show how superior you are as a writer. • If you receive a truly terrible draft, remember that this is your opportunity to give the kind of comments you wish you’d received.

11. Next Week: • Bring a body paragraph that needs work, not the intro or conclusion. • Print out your instructor comments. • Be ready to ask specific questions about how you can improve your draft. • Review chapters 10 & 11 in your textbook on global coherence and concision.