Peer Editing Experience on Design Document

Over the past week, I have had the opportunity to revisit and revise my instructional design document that I am creating in order to build an online course in Canvas. During this revision process, I have received feedback on my work and I have given feedback to another student on their work. I found the process from both perspectives to be enlightening. In order to make sure my critique had some depth, I found Susan Doyle’s (2013) list of peer editing guidelines that helped me through the process. She listed five suggestions for the peer editor; read the paper two times, read as if you are the defined audience, do not fix but suggest, be constructive, and give detailed comments. This gave me direction as I began to peer edit.

First, I was able to peer review another student’s instructional design document and add my critiques to his paper. I found the process to be enlightening. As I read his paper, I found myself wanting to make sure that I was giving him feedback in the same manner that I hoped to receive feedback back from my own peer editor. This made me really think about what I added to the comments. On the other hand, I found it rather difficult to not try to change what he had in his paper to formats that I preferred. As an example, I found his goals and objectives to be numbered in a very confusing way. I did not know if this was only confusing to me, or if others that read the document would also be confused. I suggested changing the numbering system if he desired. All in all, I hope that he appreciated the suggested changes.

Second, I received the peer edits back from the student that reviewed my instructional design document. At first, I skimmed through the paper and could not believe all of the comments that were posted. However, as I began to tackle her suggestions in each comment, I could see how much better my instructional design document was becoming. The constructive critique added clarity in several areas and definitely corrected some word usage and grammar issues. There was only one comment that I did not change the content. This comment dealt with one of my objectives and where it was placed in the list. I had purposefully listed the objectives in that specific order so that this objective preceded the following objectives. All in all, I was very appreciative of the suggested edits and took advantage of using these suggestions to improve my paper.

In most of my work that I do, whether in my college class or on the job, I always appreciate another individual taking the time to read through what I have written and making suggestions on how to make my product better. I truly believe that peer reviewing only makes for better work. I will continue to use this strategy as I work on future projects.

Reference

Doyle, S. (2013). Guidelines for peer editing. Retrieved September 12, 2015, from http://web.uvic.ca/~sdoyle/E302/Notes/Peer%20editing.html