how to peer edit an essay

How to Peer Edit an Essay: Free Peer Editing Checklist

If you want to peer edit an essay and are looking for some top tips, check out our free peer editing checklist.

The idea of editing and proofreading your own essays, let alone asking someone else to help, may be beyond comprehension. In fact, you may think your essay is pretty fantastic already.

If so, you’re deceiving yourself.

Don’t just settle for good . You should be looking for great.

But how do you achieve this?

The majority of students settle for good. That’s enough. It will get them through school.

But good isn’t enough for the top students. They aspire to be great. They aspire to be awesome.

How do YOU become awesome?

Get a friend to help.

To take an essay beyond the draft stage through a polished version, you need a peer editor. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a professional essay editor (although that will deliver the best results); it needs to be someone who will call you out and tell you how it really is.

When you’re looking for someone to peer edit your essay, try and choose someone who you know well and who you can trust to be honest and methodical. You’re not looking for someone who’ll tell you how great your essay is; you’re looking for someone who will provide you with an objective criticism of your paper.

The purpose of the exercise isn’t to tear you down; it’s to make you better.

So, once you’ve found the ideal peer editor, how can you get the most out of the exercise?

Hand them our handy tips and the great peer editing checklist.

If you wish to edit your essay before engaging the help of a peer editor, take a look at our guide to essay editing .

How to Peer Edit an Essay: Top Tips for Success

Peer editors should review an essay with the primary intention of offering advice on how it can be improved. Here are some great tips to make sure you do the task justice.

Ideally, read through the paper at least twice

During the first pass, you’ll familiarize yourself with the content of the essay and the primary arguments that are put forth. During the second pass, you’ll have a chance to readily understand what is being said. If you don’t understand the content after two readings; there’s a problem the writer needs to know about.

Position yourself as the target reader

While you’re in the process of peer editing the essay, take the role of the envisioned reader; i.e., the person who is reading the essay to learn from someone as opposed to being on the hunt for pesky grammatical errors. During the peer editing process, you should be concerned with content, organization, and style. If you focus purely on punctuation and spelling errors, you may not add a significant amount of value. Your role is to help the writer ensure the essay is clear and compelling.

Resist the temptation to fix the issues

Your job as a peer editor is not to take over and correct any issues that you identify; it’s to provide the writer with constructive feedback on how the paper can be improved.

Tell the truth… constructively

If you’re peer editing a friend’s essay, you may not want to hurt his or her feelings by pointing out areas where there is a lack of clarity. However, if you fail to do so, there’s no point in engaging in the process. Resist the urge to say everything is fine and instead focus on how you can help the writer learn someone from the process. Provide constructive feedback that highlights the positive areas of the essay while also pointing out some areas for improvement.

Provide specific details

Don’t provide sweeping statements such as, “I don’t understand your point.” Instead, provide very precise feedback on what exactly you don’t understand and what information may help you understand it better: “Perhaps you could make your point clearer by explaining why…” Take every opportunity to explain why you found something effective or ineffective.

Check the style guide

Universities and colleges typically follow one of six major style guides in academic writing: APA, Harvard, MHRA, MLA , OSCOLA and Oxford. When you write in a consistent manner following a recognised style guide, it is simpler for readers to understand what to anticipate and where to find further information. Effective application of a style in formal writing will distinguish your work visually and ensure you meet the university’s requirements. If you’re using APA, take a look at our guide to APA formatting .

The Three Pillars of Excellent Peer Essay Editing

Free peer editing checklist.

Download a free PDF version of our peer editing checklist by clicking on the image above. Here’s the full lowdown on what’s included.

Essay Introduction

• Does the essay begin with a clear, attention-grabbing statement or hook?
• Are there at least three sentences in the introduction?
• Does the writer make his or her intentions clear?
• Are you clear about what issue is being addressed in this essay?
• Is there a clear thesis statement?

See our guide to how to write an essay introduction for more help.

• Are there at least three body paragraphs?
• Does each body paragraph contain a clear topic sentence and idea?
• Does each body paragraph contain a conclusion statement that leads well to the next body paragraph?
• Does the conclusion contain at least three sentences?
• Does the conclusion refer back to the thesis statement?

Essay Flow and Coherence

• Do the ideas flow logically through the paper and contribute to a building argument?
• Have you used transitions correctly?
• Is the essay interesting?
• Does the analysis presented in the paper support the thesis statement?
• Is the sentence structure varied?

Essay Style and Mechanics

• Have you appropriately attributed and cited evidence?
• Have you cited each reference source according to the relevant style guide? If you’re using APA, take a look at our APA checklist .
• Is the paper formatted according to the relevant style guide?
• Are the references, tables, and figures formatted according to the relevant style guide?
• Have you proofread the paper? For a full proofreading checklist, take a look at our essay proofreading checklist.
• Misspelled words
• Grammatical mistakes
• Punctuation errors
• Run-on Sentences

So that’s our guide to how to peer edit an essay. Got anything to add? Please leave a comment.

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How to Peer Edit an Essay

By Georgina Roy

Peer to peer learning is very important for writers. Writers work alone, most of the time, and writers are highly sensitive about their own work. Sometimes, you might be put into a situation where you will have to peer edit an essay , probably in a school setting or as a part of a writing workshop. Also, if your friends are writers, you might be asked to peer edit not just an essay, but a larger piece of work as well, like a short story, a novella, and maybe even a novel.

Also, knowing how to peer edit an essay can help you edit your own work as well. There are three steps to follow when you are peer editing an essay, and we will get to them below, but first, let’s take a look at what peer editing actually means.

What is peer editing?

Peer editing refers to editing a piece of writing written by a person who is equal to you in skills and abilities, or age, or both. In a school setting, your peers are your classmates. If you’re attending a writers’ workshop , the same will apply. And once someone else’s writing finds its way to you for peer editing, you might be tempted to just jump in and edit their grammar, spelling, or punctuation errors and be done with it.

However, put yourself into the writer’s shoes: would you really be that worried about grammar and spelling error? Or, would you prefer to receive constructive feedback?

Constructive feedback is necessary with peer editing

Anyone can notice a few grammar and spelling errors. However, it will be your writer peers who will be able to give you constructive feedback. Receiving constructive feedback is what makes peer editing so beneficial to all writers. Constructive feedback contains two steps: complimenting the writer and offering suggestions.

When you’re complimenting the writer, you will point out everything that you believe the writer has done right. For example, you might compliment the topic of their essay, their word choice, the structure of the essay, and other things. This will have a positive effect on the writer. Remember, your goal is not to discourage the writer, but to offer constructive feedback. If you only focus on what should be improved – and if the first part of your feedback is focused on improvement – the writer might start feeling incompetent and defensive, which will have a negative effect and render the peer editing useless in the end.

The second step, which is offering suggestions, is also a delicate step. Here, you can point out what you think should be improved, but you must present this as an opinion in the form of a suggestion, instead of saying that the structure of the essay, for example, was completely wrong. Again, you don’t want to discourage the writer, you want to help them improve, but you’re not helping when you’re just pointing out what is wrong without offering suggestions on how that can be fixed.

These two steps are very important, and are easier to understand via examples. Below, we will take a look at each step and explain how it is done, as well as offer helpful tips for each.

Step one: Praising the writer and offering compliments

This step is supposed to be easy, right? Just read the essay, find the things that you like and tell the writer. Only, what happens when the essay is mostly badly written, needs a lot of improvements, and you cannot find anything to compliment the writer on?

For that reason, in the first step, you need to at least compliment the writer on the topic they’ve chosen, the opinion they’ve shared, and your favorite thing about the essay.

The topic: You can always compliment the author on the topic they’ve chosen. You can offer your opinion on it, and why you find the topic interesting. This will break the ice between yourself and the writer, and the writer will be more receptive to everything you will have to say after that. In comparison, if you begin by saying that you don’t really care for the topic, you will create a barrier between you two. Instead, if you’re not interested in the topic, you can tell the writer that you’re not very knowledgeable about it. You will prompt them to explain why they’ve chosen the topic, again, breaking the ice in a positive way, rather than creating a barrier.

Their opinion: Writers share their thoughts through their writing. If you agree with the opinions the writer shared in the essay, you should tell them so. Again, this will create a connection between you two, and the writer will not feel animosity towards you. However, if you disagree with their opinion, instead of saying that directly, you can say that their opinion is interesting, and ask them the reasons why they think that way. This will prompt a friendly discussion, rather than generate animosity.

Favorite part: Whether you are peer editing an essay, or a novella or a novel, always make sure to have a favorite part. The favorite part doesn’t necessarily have to be the best part of the essay, but, you definitely have to present it as such. The good news is that you can choose anything. It can be a specific word the writer has chosen, or it can be a phrase, or how they have described something. Remember, you should always tell the writer what your favorite part was because the writer will understand that you read their essay with care – and you enjoyed it enough to have a favorite part.

Things to remember about the first step:

• Always be positive;
• Use the highest praises you can – but remain realistic;
• Don’t compliment something you think should be improved;
• Your goal is to be positive and start the peer editing process on a positive note;
• Show interest into the topic and the writer’s opinions, even if you disagree;
• Enable the writer to tell you more about the topic, and they may even explain what their thoughts were as they were writing the essay;
• Always have a favorite part or thing about the essay.

Step two: Making suggestions

In this step, you will talk about things that need to be improved. This step is important because you need to be careful not to do some of the following things:

• Make the writer feel insecure;
• Insult or hurt them by being too harsh;
• Offer problems and not solutions;
• Use derogatory language that will generate negativity between you two.

It’s very easy to make peer editing a negative experience for the writer if you let go and be a very harsh critic. While it is advisable to offer as many suggestions as possible, focus first on the top three or four things the writer should improve upon, which will be your major suggestions, and then if you still find more things to improve, mention them in passing.

Here are a few examples of what you shouldn’t do:

• Don’t say, “I see a lot of room for improvement here.” This will make the writer feel as though their essay is not good at all and that it needs a lot of work. Instead, you can say, “I have a few suggestions that might help the essay read better.”
• At any point, do not say words that are negative. For example, do not say something like “The essay reads as if it was written by a child.” While that example is extreme, even the smallest negative word can have a very big negative effect.
• Do not tell the writer things they’ve done wrong. That’s what offering suggestions is all about. Instead of saying, “You’ve used the word good so many times it makes reading the essay boring,” you can say, “The word “good” appears a lot in this essay, don’t you think? Do you think you could use another word, like excellent, or great?”

Most importantly, do not offer problems without solutions. If you think that there is room for improvements, you need to suggest how the writer can do this. Don’t say things like, “The structure of your essay is not good enough,” without offering tips on how the writer can change that. This is the reason why the second phase is in forms of suggestions.

Making suggestions instead of telling the writer what he or she has done wrong ensures that you don’t discourage the writer by negative comments and offer tips for improvement at the same time. Meanwhile, always remember to propose these suggestions in the form of a question, like:

• Do you think you could explain this part a bit more?
• Do you think you could use a stronger word here?
• Using the word superb here might be a little strong. Do you think you could use another word instead?
• Do you think that you can make this sentence shorter?

In this manner, you are prompting the writer to take a second look at the essay and see for themselves that the sentence is long, or that the word superb might be pretty strong in that part of the essay. You can do this for every area of improvement that you see in the essay.

Best of all is that you will not discourage the writer and make him or her feel bad. Instead, you are offering the type of constructive feedback that every writer needs, without crippling them in the process. Moreover, by phrasing suggestions as questions, you are putting a stronger emphasis on the fact that you and the writer are peers: that means equal in ability (or age) – instead of making the writer feel inferior to you.

Step three: Correcting grammar and spelling errors

This step isn’t the most important when it comes to the whole process, but you still should point out the spelling errors , wrong words, homonyms, and grammar errors that have slipped into the essay. This step is important to make the essay correct, but it will not have an impact on the essay or on the writer.

Most writers are fine with making spelling and grammar errors in the first draft and editing them out later, unless they are perfectionists who want to get everything right on the first try. Regardless, just because you offered constructive feedback in the first two steps, it doesn’t mean that you are entitled to skipping this step.

Moreover, two pairs of eyes going over the same essay will catch most, if not all, grammar and spelling errors, and make sure that the essay is the best version of itself it can be. This is important because it’s very easy for homonyms, for example, to go unnoticed (which is the reason why a lot of people today can barely tell the difference between you’re, your, they’re, their, were, we’re, and so on – they all sound the same). However, these types of spelling errors need to be eradicated from the essay.

Tips and tricks for peer editing

Peer editing needs, ultimately, to help the writer improve upon the essay and improve his or her writing in the future. However, you can also make peer editing more fun, interesting, and productive as well, by using some of the following tips:

• Create a grading system, where you award one or two, or more stars, for sections like: writing, word choice, sentence structure, use of adverbs, etc.
• Explain why you’re giving each compliment – not just saying that you liked something, but that you liked it because it brought a good image, or explained the point really well, etc.
• Talk to the writer as if you’re best friends, even if you’re strangers;
• Always try to be compassionate and empathetic – especially if you’re going to peer editing the writer’s essay tomorrow;
• Always be positive and use complimentary words;
• Treat improvements as things that the writer has not yet done (instead of presenting them as things the writer would have never done);
• Being friendly and positive will make the whole process easier and more interesting, instead of acting cold and professional all the time.

Image credit: Pixabay

Georgina Roy wants to live in a world filled with magic. As an art student, she’s moonlighting as a writer and is content to fill notebooks and sketchbooks with magical creatures and amazing new worlds. When she is not at school, or scribbling away in a notebook, you can usually find her curled up, reading a good urban fantasy novel, or writing on her laptop, trying to create her own.

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A Framework for Teaching Students How to Peer Edit

Giving meaningful feedback on a peer’s work doesn’t come naturally to students. Try these tips to help students hone their editing skills.

Too often, asking students to edit each other’s writing results in superficial commentary. Many students are uncertain about how to provide meaningful feedback on a peer’s work. 

One way to make peer review more effective is by scaffolding it, or breaking down the practice into several classes where students critique each other’s work in a more focused, incremental manner. Scaffolding allows students to identify and address a single type of error in an allotted time period. While it is a valuable process for all students, it is especially useful for English-language learners and learning-support students, who benefit from breaking tasks and information into more manageable components. 

Deconstruct Constructive Criticism

Students need to learn how to give and receive criticism in a productive and respectful manner. Before embarking on a class-wide peer review activity, teachers might underscore the importance of responses that are forthright and civil. Mastering the art of giving valuable feedback that doesn’t offend will benefit students in nearly every professional and personal relationship they maintain. 

Start by breaking down the two words: constructive and criticism . What do these words mean by themselves? What synonyms might apply to each word? Ask students to think of examples of ways they might offer constructive criticism on a peer’s writing. They can be as simple as “Remember to capitalize proper nouns” or “Restate your thesis in your final paragraph.” Underscore to students that the criticism must be specific and helpful. “Good job!” doesn’t suffice. Write their responses on one or two poster boards, and place them where students can see them and refer back to them throughout the process. 

Provide samples of criticism for students to emulate. You may want to advise learners to attach positive feedback with constructive criticism. For example, “Your hook poses a good question, but it contains several grammar errors” or “You inserted this quotation correctly.” 

As there is no definitive guide to constructive criticism, teachers and students are encouraged to discuss what constitutes responsible feedback to find a definition and standards that best suit the class.

Set Clear Plans

In the same way that instruction often demands that educators create the assessment first, teachers should prepare for the peer review at the beginning of any writing assignment. A scaffolded peer review can be time-consuming, so consider the length of the writing assignment to be assessed when making a determination about the class time required. 

Before assigning writing, consider what writing skills you want your students to learn, review, or practice. The objectives will vary by class, and they should be articulated to students from the outset. Some teachers may have the class focus on writing an effective thesis, incorporating quotations, or adding in-text citations. In other classes, the objective may be reviewing capitalization or comma usage. Identify the skills that students are expected to practice writing and finding in each other’s papers.

Facilitate the Process

Scaffolding the peer review provides an opportunity for students to read a piece multiple times to assess different elements of writing. First the class reviews the objective as a whole group. Then peer pairs review their individual writing with a focus on the defined learning objective. 

Some students may be reluctant to criticize peers’ work. Consider choosing peer-review partners instead of letting the students pick. This might cut down on students’ being fearful of offending their friends. Also, if the debrief period is generating little discussion, ask students to debrief with their partners as opposed to in front of the class. Give students a set of debrief prompts to focus their discussion, such as “Discuss the corrections you made.” 

Encourage students to refer to the posters regarding constructive criticism examples, especially if someone has given an impolite criticism. 

Debrief as a Class

After the pair reviews, debrief by discussing the findings as a class. The debrief can be an open-ended session in which the teacher encourages students to ask questions and voice misunderstandings about both writing and critiquing. The debrief can also be more structured and incorporate specific questions, such as “What is a challenge an editor or peer reviewer might face?” or “What is one element of your writing you wish to improve upon?” The debrief can also take the form of a small writing assignment, such as a reflective paragraph on the peer review process in which students summarize what they have learned as an editor and proofreader.

We want our students to be proficient writers and thinkers. Reviewing a peer’s work can help young people better understand the often difficult process of writing by challenging them to adopt a dynamic new role as critic.

Lend Me Your Peers: How to Make the Most of Peer Editing Sessions

September 1, 2017

By Andrew Koch, Writing Tutor

"And be sure to bring a draft of your paper for next week's class. We're having a peer review day."

(Internal groan)

Peer editing days are like Cincinnati weather: either great or miserable, with not much in between. The right suggestions from classmates about your writing can give you great insights on how to improve your paper, but if you're anything like me, you find bad peer editing can be a real drag.

Bad peer editing comes in many forms, from the hypercritical (red ink dripping from every line) to the unresponsive (a blank expression and a shrug when you ask "So what'd you think?"), and the worst peer editing can make you feel worse about your paper than when you began the session. Many professors have students critique others' works as a way of improving writing, but misguided peer review sessions can turn into time spent either politely nodding and discussing weekend plans and last night's game or (worse) passive-aggressively tearing each other's papers apart. Sometimes a student may not know what kind of advice to give to a classmate, especially if he or she is personally struggling to understand the assignment.

But you don't have to settle for anything less than the best from these sessions! As is the case in many areas in life, you'll get what you give from peer editing. By committing to being a better peer editor, you're helping to improve the peer editing culture and showing your classmate what kind of feedback you're looking for in return. By learning the right questions to ask, your partner and you can both walk away with a better paper and more confidence about the assignment. Here are some ways to help you get the most out of peer editing sessions:

Look at the big picture. A common mistake among editors is putting too much focus on "proofreading" and not enough on the content of a paper. Though it pains me (a grammar nerd) to admit it, good peer editing is about a lot more than policing spelling and punctuation. Rather, good peer editing ensures that a piece of writing, in addition to being grammatically correct, makes sense to the audience and is accomplishing what the assignment asks. Don't be afraid to ask more general questions about the paper and its structure and focus. Is the writer's focus too broad? Too specific? In an argumentative paper, is the writer's main opinion coming through? Are there ways that the writer could be clearer? Does your partner's paper fulfill the assignment's requirements in terms of focus?

Listen to the writer and let him/her guide. See if there's a specific aspect of the paper that your partner is concerned about. While some of your fellow students might not know what they want to improve about their writing/assignment, others will more precisely know how they want to better develop the paper. As a peer editor, your goal is to help the other student improve his or her assignment and writing ability, whatever shape that may take, and your classmate will do the same for you. As tempting as it might seem, this is not a chance for you to show off your intelligence or writing prowess. Remember to stay focused on what your review session partner needs and follow his or her lead.

Read the paper out loud. If you've been to the Writing Center, you're probably familiar with this technique, one of our favorites. It's easy to become bogged down in your own words while writing a piece, but verbally revisiting your words by doing a read through can help you catch content weaknesses and, yes, spelling and grammar mistakes, too, by revisiting your language in a new way. Time permitting, have your partner read his or her paper aloud to you.

Ask questions and be patient. If you're unsure about something in your partner's paper, just ask! Writers love to talk about their writing, and face-to-face communication allows you the opportunity to quickly and efficiently ask questions and get feedback. Don't assume that you understand what a writer is saying - feel free to pick your partner's brain about his or her subject or topic. I've often found that my best ideas come when I'm explaining my paper's subject or my writing assignment to someone else.

Being a better peer editor for someone else can help you focus on your own writing as well. By being a more thoughtful peer editor, you can break the cycle of unproductive and unhelpful peer editing sessions, and everybody will win.

You might also like:

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The power of peer editing: five questions to ask in the review.

You’ve put in the work of researching, reading, writing and revising your paper. You’ve read it out loud and followed the assignment requirements.

You’re going strong, but there’s still another step you need to perfect your paper.

The peer edit.

Utilizing peer review in your writing process may not always be easy. You’re offering the paper that you’ve spent hours on up for critique.

But the peer edit can be so beneficial in enhancing your writing.

We may often think of “peer review” in terms of journal articles that have been analyzed and approved for accuracy. While your paper won’t require that same heightened, professional level of critique, bringing it to one of your peers—whether a classmate, a friend, a mentor—can enhance your research paper greatly.

Here, we share about the importance of incorporating a peer review process for both the author and the reviewer.

What is Peer Review?

A peer review of your research paper is different than the editing process that you go through. Rather than you going through each section, citation, argument in your paper, someone else does. A peer review involves handing it to someone you trust to allow them to read it and provide feedback to help make your paper the best it can be.

This is no small feat. It requires you to be vulnerable about what you’ve written. You need to be willing to accept mistakes you may make and be committed to accepting their suggestions as a way to grow in your writing and academic work.

Why is Peer Review Important?

This stage of the editing process is unique in that pulls in another perspective. Unlike you, your peer editor hasn’t been immersed in reading and research on your paper’s topic. They don’t know for certain what direction your paper will go or what your arguments are.

This new, objective perspective brings great value in revision.

A fresh set of eyes sees issues, gaps, mistakes and clouded arguments that you may have missed or had not thought of.

When your peer editor sits down and sifts through your paper, they provide both positive comments of what’s going well in the paper, as well as opportunities for improvement in areas that may be unclear. Their input helps make your paper better, if you choose to follow their recommendations.

If you’re working with a classmate, trade papers and review each other’s paper. This not only allows you to receive feedback on your paper, but it also develops your skills in providing feedback and looking for specific elements in a paper. You become a better editor. Whether you’re passing your paper off or reviewing a paper, your skills in writing can be greatly enhanced.

Questions to Ask in the Peer Review

In the peer review process, it’s helpful to have a plan of action in addressing the paper. Below are five questions that can help guide the process. Whether you’re the author or the reviewer (or both), these five questions can help focus your attention on key components of the assignment and enhance your skills.

Question 1: Is the Audience and Purpose of the Paper Clearly Established?

As a reviewer, one of the first things you want to be sure to notice in the paper is if you can figure out who the paper is addressing. The audience of the paper should be evident in reference to the topic, the tone of the paper and the type of language used.

For example, if the paper contains a lot of jargon and industry-specific language, you could infer that the audience would be familiar with those terms. If not, you may want to suggest using less jargon or explaining the terms used.

The purpose of the paper should also be very clear and straightforward to you as the new reader. The thesis statement, most often in the introduction, should clearly convey the purpose. But from the opening to the main arguments to the concluding statement, the purpose of the paper should be obvious.

As a peer reviewer, you can help the author determine if both the audience and purpose of the paper are clearly established early on in the paper.

Question 2: Does the Main Point Match the Thesis Statement?

One of the most important sentences in the paper is the author’s thesis statement. The location and type of thesis statement depends on the kind of essay or paper. However, as a general rule, thesis statements should be concise, straightforward and clear in addressing the main argument.

As a new reader, you as the reviewer can provide great insight into the clarity of the thesis.

The Writing Center at the University of North Carolina has a helpful article on crafting the perfect thesis. In this article, they suggest you ask the following questions of the thesis statement:

• Can I find the thesis statement?
• Is the thesis specific enough?
• Does the thesis answer the “so what” question of the paper?
• Does the rest of the paper support the thesis statement?

Peer review can help enhance a thesis statement by noticing gaps or questions in the argument.

Question 3: Does the Paper Flow Well?

When you’re the writer of a paper, you may work in sections. First, you tackle main point A, then move onto B, add in C and finish up with a conclusion.

When you’re a peer reviewer, you’re reading it for the first time all in one glance. With this new perspective, you can more easily identify gaps, questions and concerns in the structure of the paper.

Does point A leap to point B leaving little to hold on to? Note that the author should include a better transition. Are you left wondering what point C has to do with point A? Highlight the need for a better connection between main points.

With an objective, outside perspective, you can help the author improve the flow and clarity of their paper to communicate most effectively.

Question 4: What Areas Need Additional Description?

As a reviewer of a paper, you want to fully understand the content you’re reading. And when you come across a section that you’re left wondering what’s going on, it can be frustrating.

An important question to ask as you review a paper is if each section contains sufficient description and detail to add value to the paper. Notice those areas that come across as too vague and uninteresting. Highlighting the desire for more information encourages the author to add clarity and enhance their ability to communicate effectively.

Question 5: Do you notice any grammar or word choice mistakes?

While this final question may be the most obvious, you want to help your author out by pointing out those grammar and word choice errors that she may have missed.

• Is there an extra comma?
• Does she have subject-verb agreement in all sentences?
• Are most of the sentences in active voice?
• Did they incorrectly cite their source?
• Is there an extra tab in their reference page?

Being on the lookout for these types of errors can also help you as the reviewer to refresh your skills in grammar, punctuation, paragraphs and APA Style.

Incorporating a peer review process in finalizing a paper is immensely beneficial for both the author and the reviewer. Each elevates their writing skills. The author is more confident in the paper she submits and the reviewer grows in her editing ability.

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PGS offers numerous academic support resources to equip you to succeed in your degree program, whether that’s in writing a paper or other assignments. Visit our academic support web page to discover more essential tools.

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Ellie Walburg

Ellie Walburg (B.S.’17, M.B.A.’20) serves as the admissions communications coordinator for Cornerstone University’s Professional & Graduate Studies division.

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Editing and Proofreading

What this handout is about.

This handout provides some tips and strategies for revising your writing. To give you a chance to practice proofreading, we have left seven errors (three spelling errors, two punctuation errors, and two grammatical errors) in the text of this handout. See if you can spot them!

Is editing the same thing as proofreading?

Not exactly. Although many people use the terms interchangeably, editing and proofreading are two different stages of the revision process. Both demand close and careful reading, but they focus on different aspects of the writing and employ different techniques.

Some tips that apply to both editing and proofreading

• Get some distance from the text! It’s hard to edit or proofread a paper that you’ve just finished writing—it’s still to familiar, and you tend to skip over a lot of errors. Put the paper aside for a few hours, days, or weeks. Go for a run. Take a trip to the beach. Clear your head of what you’ve written so you can take a fresh look at the paper and see what is really on the page. Better yet, give the paper to a friend—you can’t get much more distance than that. Someone who is reading the paper for the first time, comes to it with completely fresh eyes.
• Decide which medium lets you proofread most carefully. Some people like to work right at the computer, while others like to sit back with a printed copy that they can mark up as they read.
• Try changing the look of your document. Altering the size, spacing, color, or style of the text may trick your brain into thinking it’s seeing an unfamiliar document, and that can help you get a different perspective on what you’ve written.
• Find a quiet place to work. Don’t try to do your proofreading in front of the TV or while you’re chugging away on the treadmill. Find a place where you can concentrate and avoid distractions.
• If possible, do your editing and proofreading in several short blocks of time. Your concentration may start to wane if you try to proofread the entire text at one time.
• If you’re short on time, you may wish to prioritize. Make sure that you complete the most important editing and proofreading tasks.

Editing is what you begin doing as soon as you finish your first draft. You reread your draft to see, for example, whether the paper is well-organized, the transitions between paragraphs are smooth, and your evidence really backs up your argument. You can edit on several levels:

Have you done everything the assignment requires? Are the claims you make accurate? If it is required to do so, does your paper make an argument? Is the argument complete? Are all of your claims consistent? Have you supported each point with adequate evidence? Is all of the information in your paper relevant to the assignment and/or your overall writing goal? (For additional tips, see our handouts on understanding assignments and developing an argument .)

Overall structure

Does your paper have an appropriate introduction and conclusion? Is your thesis clearly stated in your introduction? Is it clear how each paragraph in the body of your paper is related to your thesis? Are the paragraphs arranged in a logical sequence? Have you made clear transitions between paragraphs? One way to check the structure of your paper is to make a reverse outline of the paper after you have written the first draft. (See our handouts on introductions , conclusions , thesis statements , and transitions .)

Structure within paragraphs

Does each paragraph have a clear topic sentence? Does each paragraph stick to one main idea? Are there any extraneous or missing sentences in any of your paragraphs? (See our handout on paragraph development .)

Have you defined any important terms that might be unclear to your reader? Is the meaning of each sentence clear? (One way to answer this question is to read your paper one sentence at a time, starting at the end and working backwards so that you will not unconsciously fill in content from previous sentences.) Is it clear what each pronoun (he, she, it, they, which, who, this, etc.) refers to? Have you chosen the proper words to express your ideas? Avoid using words you find in the thesaurus that aren’t part of your normal vocabulary; you may misuse them.

Have you used an appropriate tone (formal, informal, persuasive, etc.)? Is your use of gendered language (masculine and feminine pronouns like “he” or “she,” words like “fireman” that contain “man,” and words that some people incorrectly assume apply to only one gender—for example, some people assume “nurse” must refer to a woman) appropriate? Have you varied the length and structure of your sentences? Do you tends to use the passive voice too often? Does your writing contain a lot of unnecessary phrases like “there is,” “there are,” “due to the fact that,” etc.? Do you repeat a strong word (for example, a vivid main verb) unnecessarily? (For tips, see our handouts on style and gender-inclusive language .)

Have you appropriately cited quotes, paraphrases, and ideas you got from sources? Are your citations in the correct format? (See the UNC Libraries citation tutorial for more information.)

As you edit at all of these levels, you will usually make significant revisions to the content and wording of your paper. Keep an eye out for patterns of error; knowing what kinds of problems you tend to have will be helpful, especially if you are editing a large document like a thesis or dissertation. Once you have identified a pattern, you can develop techniques for spotting and correcting future instances of that pattern. For example, if you notice that you often discuss several distinct topics in each paragraph, you can go through your paper and underline the key words in each paragraph, then break the paragraphs up so that each one focuses on just one main idea.

Proofreading

Proofreading is the final stage of the editing process, focusing on surface errors such as misspellings and mistakes in grammar and punctuation. You should proofread only after you have finished all of your other editing revisions.

Why proofread? It’s the content that really matters, right?

Content is important. But like it or not, the way a paper looks affects the way others judge it. When you’ve worked hard to develop and present your ideas, you don’t want careless errors distracting your reader from what you have to say. It’s worth paying attention to the details that help you to make a good impression.

Most people devote only a few minutes to proofreading, hoping to catch any glaring errors that jump out from the page. But a quick and cursory reading, especially after you’ve been working long and hard on a paper, usually misses a lot. It’s better to work with a definite plan that helps you to search systematically for specific kinds of errors.

Sure, this takes a little extra time, but it pays off in the end. If you know that you have an effective way to catch errors when the paper is almost finished, you can worry less about editing while you are writing your first drafts. This makes the entire writing proccess more efficient.

Try to keep the editing and proofreading processes separate. When you are editing an early draft, you don’t want to be bothered with thinking about punctuation, grammar, and spelling. If your worrying about the spelling of a word or the placement of a comma, you’re not focusing on the more important task of developing and connecting ideas.

The proofreading process

You probably already use some of the strategies discussed below. Experiment with different tactics until you find a system that works well for you. The important thing is to make the process systematic and focused so that you catch as many errors as possible in the least amount of time.

• Don’t rely entirely on spelling checkers. These can be useful tools but they are far from foolproof. Spell checkers have a limited dictionary, so some words that show up as misspelled may really just not be in their memory. In addition, spell checkers will not catch misspellings that form another valid word. For example, if you type “your” instead of “you’re,” “to” instead of “too,” or “there” instead of “their,” the spell checker won’t catch the error.
• Grammar checkers can be even more problematic. These programs work with a limited number of rules, so they can’t identify every error and often make mistakes. They also fail to give thorough explanations to help you understand why a sentence should be revised. You may want to use a grammar checker to help you identify potential run-on sentences or too-frequent use of the passive voice, but you need to be able to evaluate the feedback it provides.
• Proofread for only one kind of error at a time. If you try to identify and revise too many things at once, you risk losing focus, and your proofreading will be less effective. It’s easier to catch grammar errors if you aren’t checking punctuation and spelling at the same time. In addition, some of the techniques that work well for spotting one kind of mistake won’t catch others.
• Read slow, and read every word. Try reading out loud , which forces you to say each word and also lets you hear how the words sound together. When you read silently or too quickly, you may skip over errors or make unconscious corrections.
• Separate the text into individual sentences. This is another technique to help you to read every sentence carefully. Simply press the return key after every period so that every line begins a new sentence. Then read each sentence separately, looking for grammar, punctuation, or spelling errors. If you’re working with a printed copy, try using an opaque object like a ruler or a piece of paper to isolate the line you’re working on.
• Circle every punctuation mark. This forces you to look at each one. As you circle, ask yourself if the punctuation is correct.
• Read the paper backwards. This technique is helpful for checking spelling. Start with the last word on the last page and work your way back to the beginning, reading each word separately. Because content, punctuation, and grammar won’t make any sense, your focus will be entirely on the spelling of each word. You can also read backwards sentence by sentence to check grammar; this will help you avoid becoming distracted by content issues.
• Proofreading is a learning process. You’re not just looking for errors that you recognize; you’re also learning to recognize and correct new errors. This is where handbooks and dictionaries come in. Keep the ones you find helpful close at hand as you proofread.
• Ignorance may be bliss, but it won’t make you a better proofreader. You’ll often find things that don’t seem quite right to you, but you may not be quite sure what’s wrong either. A word looks like it might be misspelled, but the spell checker didn’t catch it. You think you need a comma between two words, but you’re not sure why. Should you use “that” instead of “which”? If you’re not sure about something, look it up.
• The proofreading process becomes more efficient as you develop and practice a systematic strategy. You’ll learn to identify the specific areas of your own writing that need careful attention, and knowing that you have a sound method for finding errors will help you to focus more on developing your ideas while you are drafting the paper.

Think you’ve got it?

Then give it a try, if you haven’t already! This handout contains seven errors our proofreader should have caught: three spelling errors, two punctuation errors, and two grammatical errors. Try to find them, and then check a version of this page with the errors marked in red to see if you’re a proofreading star.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Especially for non-native speakers of English:

Ascher, Allen. 2006. Think About Editing: An ESL Guide for the Harbrace Handbooks . Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Lane, Janet, and Ellen Lange. 2012. Writing Clearly: Grammar for Editing , 3rd ed. Boston: Heinle.

For everyone:

Einsohn, Amy. 2011. The Copyeditor’s Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications , 3rd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Lanham, Richard A. 2006. Revising Prose , 5th ed. New York: Pearson Longman.

Tarshis, Barry. 1998. How to Be Your Own Best Editor: The Toolkit for Everyone Who Writes . New York: Three Rivers Press.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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5 Peer Editing Strategies That Actually Work For Student Writers

When you ask your students to do peer review of their writing, do they stare at you with puzzled expressions?[…] Continue Reading

When you ask your students to do peer review of their writing, do they stare at you with puzzled expressions? Here are five specific, hands-on approaches to peer conferencing that your students can really sink their teeth into.

Revising and editing a peer’s writing helps students learn to work as a team. It also gives them a fresh perspective on the proofreading process that will help them become more aware as they write and edit their own work. So, how can you make the peer review and editing process engaging, meaningful and fun for students? Here are five ways to get your students excited about peer review that actually work!

Highlighter Markers: 3 Colors Yellow – Mark the first word of each sentence. Questions to think about: Is there variety? Does the writer use transitional words? Are there any sentence fragments or run-ons? Pink – Highlight each adjective. Think about: Is the writing descriptive? Are the adjectives strong and specific? Blue – Highlight each verb. Think about: Are there too many “to be” verbs? Are the verb choices strong?

Students begin by highlighting specifics. Then, remind them to look at the big picture. After highlighting, they can make comparisons and add suggestions about what the student needs to add, adjust or remove. Proofreading will come later. First, they are helping a peer with sentence fluency and word choice—both descriptive language and “showing without telling.”

Teach students about the revision sandwich: compliment, suggest, correct. Remind students that when reviewing someone’s work, always start out by saying what they like about their work. Next, they make a suggestion and converse with their partner. Students ask questions. Then, they make corrections. By working together, they both learn from each other.

Click here for a PDF of the Writing Wheel Checklist.

Revising (The big picture) A dd words and sentences (be descriptive, capture all ideas). R emove words and sentences (be concise). M ove words and sentences (sentence fluency, organization). S ubstitute words and sentences (word choice, voice).

Editing (Conventions) C apitalization U sage (Verbs and nouns—does it make sense?) P unctuation S pelling

To help students with their understanding, say you use your arms and hand to hold your ear to help them remember that when you revise, you want the writing to sound better. If you punch a hole in a cup and look through it, you are using your eyes. This will help them remember that when you edit, you want your writing to look better. Students could even create a telescope made out of a paper cup and call it their Revisoscope! Check out Busy Bee Kids Crafts to see how to construct one. Once students know the difference between revising and editing and have the acronyms memorized, they can jot them down on a Post-it note when checking a peer’s writing. The acronyms will remind students of what to look for and how writing can be improved to make it look and sound better!

Print out Be the Editor task cards for students to use when revising and editing at each station. Students use Zaner-Bloser’s task cards to help them discuss and check one another’s writing! The task cards provide the children with prompts, making editing/revising easier. By concentrating on one writing trait at a time at each station, students will not feel overwhelmed. Along with the task cards, put out highlighters, sticky notes, colored pencils and other writing utensils to keep students interested.

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5 Ways to Foster Effective Peer Editing: How to teach peer editing in the ELA classroom

When I teach writing in my classroom, I teach it as a process. Every part of the writing process, from the initial brainstorming to peer editing, is equally important and integrally essential to the final draft. It is also important to know how to teach peer editing in an effective way.

All too often, students flounder when it comes to peer editing essays. Not only is it confusing for students, but they often lack the direction and skills that they need to successfully peer edit a paper. Simply designating a day for either peer editing and giving each student a red pen and free range to check his or her best friend’s paper is not enough.

When it comes to peer editing, students need direction and focus. Here are FIVE ways to make peer editing successful in your class.

How to Teach Peer Editing: 5 Effective Strategies

1. peer edit with mentor sentences.

Peer editing with mentor sentences is a great way to not only teach students how to write correct and effective thesis statements and topic sentences, but it also guides students because they are looking for and correcting or complementing specific aspects of the essay. I like to do this peer editing activity when my students are still outlining their papers. This activity takes about 15 minutes to complete from start to finish, can easily be completed at the end of the class period, and provides students with critical feedback early in the writing process.

To peer edit with mentor sentences, simply write or project a sample thesis statement and topic sentence (one, or one for each body paragraph) on the board. Then have students trade papers and instruct them to peer edit only the thesis statement and topic sentences. Students should use the mentor sentences as a guide to making sure that the thesis statement and topic sentences are accurate and complete. The thesis statement should include information about the topic of the essay, a strong verb, and supporting reasons. Similarly, the topic sentences should include a topic, strong verb, and a clause.

When using this method of peer editing, it helps to color code the mentor sentences. Doing this provides extra support for struggling writers, and it especially helps them understand and identify each part of the thesis or topic sentence.

2. Peer Edit in Different Colors

Students are never too old to work with crayons. I love using crayons in my classroom or essay writing and peer editing. If you are wondering how to teach peer editing, using color-coding strategies is especially helpful.

When peer editing with colors, I like to designate colors for certain parts of the essay. Then, I have my peer editors underline each part of the essay with a certain color. For example, as I get my students to edit, they will underline the thesis statement in red, topic sentence in orange, examples in blue, and commentary in green. From there, they will then look specifically at each part of the essay as designated by its color.

3. Peer Edit with Stations and Rotations

Once I explain the process, we begin the rotation. As students work their way through each rotation, I keep a to-do checklist on the board for my students to follow. Each rotation asks students to peer edit something different in the essay. By doing this, students are very focused and they are editing with a purpose.

The last rotation is a suggesting and complimenting rotation where students must provide thoughtful and helpful suggestions and compliments for the paper. This is especially helpful because it forces the peer reviewer to read with a critical eye, which then strengthens their own writing capabilities. You can purchase this resource HERE .

4. Peer Edit Electronically

If you are fortunate enough to have access to technology or be in a 1:1 digital classroom, you can take peer editing to a whole new level in Google Docs. When I use Google with my students for peer review, I instruct each student to change the editing setting from “editing” to “suggesting.” That way the peer reviewer can type directly in the document without changing the original content.

One of the benefits of peer editing digitally is that students can plug the essay into grammar checking websites like grammarly.com or polishmywriting.com to help them provide meaningful suggestions when it comes to grammar, spelling, and style.

5. Peer Edit with Forms and Rubrics

One of the best and most tried and true ways to help students complete peer editing is by providing them with some sort of checklist, form, or even a rubric. I use my Peer Editing Made Easy forms in my classroom when we don’t have time to run through the rotations. These forms are detailed and provide students with specific information to look for. Plus, there is a peer editing form for all of your writing needs.

When peer editing this way, it is also helpful to provide the peer editors with a copy of the rubric you will use to grade the essays. By doing so, the reviewer is looking specifically at different elements within an essay with a critical eye.

As with any portion of the writing process, I always assign points and a grade for peer editing. Usually, these points are merely participation points, but by doing so, I show the students that I value peer editing as part of the writing process.

This comment has been removed by the author.

It's as if you read my mind and posted this just for me! Today was the typical peer evaluation nightmare. Your post came just when I needed it. Thank you!

Oh no! I'm sorry your peer editing was a nightmare. I've been there before, and it is ROUGH. I hope some of these ideas can help you out next time.

We have gone to Chromebooks and are 1-1, I have been trying peer editing stations and prefer it to just the swapping papers with one student however I have been trying to figure out how to use the stations and not have them print their papers out. I love the idea of using the suggesting but do your students share their paper with certain students at the stations or do they pass their Chromebooks? What have you done and what works best? Thank you.

If you are doing peer editing stations electronically, I would suggest instructing the students to first make a copy of their file and peer edit that one. That way they still have the original if something happens. Then keep all of the Chromebooks stationary, and have the students rotate around. I'm thinking instead of musical chairs, you could do musical Chromebooks…but every students would get one!

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• v.8(7); 2022 Jul

Online peer editing: effects of comments and edits on academic writing skills

a National Research University Higher School of Economics, Institute of Education, Myasnitskaya Ulitsa, 20, Moscow, 101000, Russia

Galina Shulgina

b EFL Department, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), 291 Daehak-ro, Guseong-dong, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, South Korea

Jamie Costley

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The authors do not have permission to share data.

Although the effects of online peer editing have been studied from a number of perspectives, it remains unclear how giving and receiving comments and edits affect student academic writing performance. The current study examined the influence of these aspects of peer editing on student academic writing performance in higher education during online peer editing. Participants were 76 students engaged in peer editing of one another's work in a graduate scientific writing course at a Korean university. The relationships between the giving and receiving of comments and edits, and student performance on their writing tasks were analyzed. Results showed that there is a positive correlation between the number of comments received and the student's writing score, whereas receiving edits had the opposite effect and was associated with lower student performance. Furthermore, no relationship was found between giving comments or edits and writing performance. These results add to the field's understanding of how specific elements of peer editing can impact students' performance.

Academic writing; Comments; Edits; Online collaborative learning; Peer feedback.

1. Introduction

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, blended and online learning have been used to provide students with diverse collaborative learning opportunities ( Al-Samarraie and Saeed, 2018 ; Zhu and Liu, 2020 ). Existing research recognizes that peer feedback is a valuable tool for improving student academic performance ( Al-Rahmi et al., 2015 ), thus interest has also grown in learner-to-learner interaction and how peer editing, as one type of collaboration, plays a role in interaction and student performance ( Zhou, 2017 ). Peer editing is defined as a collaborative learning process during which peers interact, review, critique, and edit each other's work ( Ebadi and Rahimi, 2017 ). It has been shown to be more effective than feedback from a teacher in some contexts ( Cho and MacArthur, 2011 ; Ciftci and Kocoglu, 2012 ; Nicol et al., 2014 ). In the context of academic writing, both providing and receiving feedback may help students improve their writing skills as this kind of peer interaction allows students to gain knowledge from different perspectives through social sharing ( Huisman et al., 2018 ). Furthermore, peer editing may lead both the giver and receiver of feedback to absorb information, and then decide how to judge the received messages through self-reflection ( Casey and Goodyear, 2015 ). Therefore, students may take some measures to narrow the gap and reach their potential after the feedback interpretation ( Carless and Boud, 2018 ; Wang et al., 2015 ; Zhu and Carless, 2018 ).

In online peer editing, providing comments or edits are the two most prevalent methods of providing feedback ( Magnifico et al., 2015 ). Comments refer to offering opinions and leaving suggestions, usually using the embed comments function in Microsoft word or another type of word processing software. On the other hand, providing edits means making direct changes to student original text, which generally shows up as a different color than what the original author wrote in ( Perron and Sellers, 2011 ). These two methods provide students an opportunity to discuss ideas and questions, review, criticize, and edit each other's work by adding suggestions and responding to them ( Lin and Reigeluth, 2016 ; Zhu and Carless, 2018 ), which activate key cognitive processes. Existing evidence supports the claim that peer feedback may improve students' academic writing performance ( Ebadi and Rahimi, 2017 ; Huisman et al., 2018 , 2019 ; Zhang et al., 2021 ). However, there is a lack of clarity regarding how giving and receiving comments and edits will affect students' writing performance separately, especially in an online collaborative context. This study intends to explore the impact of comments and edits on students' writing performance from both giving and receiving perspectives.

2. Literature review

2.1. two methods of online peer editing.

As an in-class collaborative activity, giving and receiving peer feedback through online peer editing has been shown to greatly benefit student writing ( Casey and Goodyear, 2015 ; Ebadi and Rahimi, 2017 ; Huisman et al., 2018 , 2019 ). The enhancement that peer editing brings to writers seems to be beyond an improvement in the quality of a particular piece of writing. Engaging in peer editing helps students develop greater self-assessment skills when compared with editing alone ( Nulty, 2011 ). It allows students to learn to critically review and revise their writing from the audience's perspective, thereby developing their independent thinking skills and self-directed learning ( Ebadi and Rahimi, 2017 ). Through communication and interaction with their peers, students become more actively engaged in their own writing ( Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2006 ).

Online peer editing allows students to offer comments or edits to their peers. Specifically, comments refer to the leaving suggestions to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their peers, while edits are the act of inserting and/or deleting text written by other students ( Liu and Edwards, 2018 ). Once the editor has made the edits or left comments, the author of the text may respond to the comment, mark it as resolved, or delete it. In terms of edits of others, students can delete words and phrases directly, correct others’ spelling mistakes and add sentences or paragraphs. Compared to comments, edits provide direct changes without supporting arguments, which may, in some cases, prevent the author of the text from understanding the reasons for the proposed solution and, in turn, cause the author to decline it ( Liu and Edwards, 2018 ). Furthermore, the writer can often accept the changes without checking or understanding why the changes were made. Understanding the problem is an important predictor of effective feedback implementation ( Nelson and Schunn, 2009 ).

2.2. The influence of receiving comments on learning

Many studies have shown improvements in performance after students received comments during the learning process ( Huisman et al., 2018 , 2019 ; Zhang et al., 2021 ). A possible explanation is that receiving comments from others is helpful to student learning because during this process, receivers are encouraged to participate in the evaluation and reflection of their peers' comments ( Shvidko, 2015 ). Students may improve themselves as their peer has identified the pros and cons of their essays, and then the author may think about whether they agree with those opinions and find solutions to solve the problems noted by the reviewer ( Nicol et al., 2014 ).

However, it is not always the case that receiving comments will lead to improvements in writing or learning performance. For instance, some research has pointed out that receiving summaries, explanations, or ideas in comments is more helpful to student writing than some direct praise or criticism ( Wu and Schunn, 2020 ). Sometimes, students feel less motivated when they receive comments with no supporting evidence, which reduces the potential benefits of this type of peer activity ( Zhang and Hyland, 2018 ). Furthermore, comments may be ineffective if students do not consider, organize or fully implement them during the reflecting process ( Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2006 ). Holmes and Papageorgiou (2009) suggested that if the comments students receive are of low quality or the allocation is not appropriate, they will not help students' writing. Thus, there is a lack of clarity on how different received comments affect students’ writing.

2.3. The influence of giving comments on learning

How giving comments might affect academic writing is another area of required investigation that is within the scope of peer feedback. There is some evidence that giving feedback may be even more important than receiving it ( Ion et al., 2019 ; Rouhi and Azizian, 2013 ). Students may develop their critical thinking abilities and metacognitive strategies through providing comments, and in some cases, their ability to problem-solve can be increased to a greater degree than those who receive feedback during the process of writing ( Cho and Cho, 2011 ; Frank et al., 2018 ). Through this process, students may explore ideas collaboratively and focus on the connections between ideas while seeking to improve their writing ( Neumann and McDonough, 2015 ).

During this process, students may produce, present, and develop their knowledge of a certain topic and share that knowledge with another learner whose work they are giving feedback on ( Tai et al., 2018 ). Furthermore, many studies have stated that generating explanations is an effective method to improve one's own writing ( Dunlosky et al., 2013 ; Nicol et al., 2014 ; Tempelaar et al., 2015 ). For instance, Cho and MacArthur (2010) pointed out that when students try to give an explanation by themselves, it is much more useful than receiving them from an expert. Those findings revealed that judging from a given text can enhance students' writing performance ( Henderson and Phillips, 2015 ).

However, effective feedback necessitates deliberate coordination between the provider and recipient in a peer feedback-friendly atmosphere ( Ray and Singh, 2018 ). In general, comments as a type of peer feedback should be provided only when the learner welcomes it ( Jug et al., 2019 ). In some cases, certain comments can incite social conflicts in groups so that some comments givers may try to offer praises or other kind suggestions to avoid conflicts within groups, which may not lead to the best learning outcomes ( Fong et al., 2018 ).

2.4. Receiving edits and student performance

Research has revealed that students can gain insights into their collaborators’ views on their work by reflecting on edits that others make of their work ( Mabbott and Bull, 2006 ). According to the quality of the edits and where they are directed, students can begin to understand the quality of their own work ( Hattie and Clarke, 2018 ). Furthermore, edits can range from simple superficial corrections, such as grammar or spelling errors, or more elaborate and deeper changes directed at the conceptual and knowledge level; after receiving and judging these edits, students may be more sensitive to avoid the same mistakes in their writing ( Petrović et al., 2017 ).

On the one hand, highlighting spelling or grammar mistakes helps to improve the quality of writing. On the other hand, getting only grammatical edits as feedback may make students question their peers' abilities and cause feelings of disappointment ( Birnholtz and Ibara, 2012 ; Liu and Edwards, 2018 ). In general, students believe that collaborative writing and peer editing lead to better quality work. However, while they may perceive their edits and suggestions as a source for improvement for others' texts, sometimes received edits may be seen as an intervention which makes their texts worse ( Blau and Caspi, 2009 ). Also, edits often only highlight mistakes, which makes students perceive them as direct criticism, which may be harmful for subsequent improvement of students' writing ( Tseng and Tsai, 2007 ), lower their sense of psychological ownership ( Blau and Caspi, 2009 ), or lead to conflict ( Birnholtz and Ibara, 2012 ). Interestingly, a high number of modifications may hurt students' feelings, while a small number of edits makes them feel uninvolved by their classmates. A lack of edits may be interpreted by students as an indication of disengagement or disinterest, which could negatively impact students’ writing ( Mabbott and Bull, 2006 ).

2.5. Giving edits and student performance

Many studies have confirmed the effectiveness of online editing among peers, such as edits of others, for improving their active learning, as discussed above regarding comments ( Wang, 2015 ). For instance, reading others' writing and correcting their errors can motivate them to seek information about what they are reading about or double-check their own understanding of concepts they are reviewing ( Wang, 2015 ; Yen et al., 2015 ).

However, several circumstances, such as a lack of expertise with peer editing in general and online learning in particular, may have a detrimental impact on the usefulness of edits in improving the student writing performance. According to Ishtaiwa and Aburezeq (2015) , opaque criteria for peer editing and the lack of information about the expected level of contribution may lead to minimal and/or overly formal student participation. Some students may also have difficulties with using some functions of the learning environment as a new instrument for learning, which can limit their participation ( Ishtaiwa and Aburezeq, 2015 ). Moreover, students often may try to avoid editing their peers’ work because of the risk of upsetting the author ( Birnholtz and Ibara, 2012 ; Coyle, 2007 ).

2.6. Present study

The present study seeks to explore the influence of giving and receiving peer feedback in the form of comments and edits on student learning. This study looks at the total amounts of comments and edits and does not investigate the quality or function of comments or edits. The reasons for this is that the first step in this type of research agenda is to look at the impact of the quantity of peer feedback elements on student writing performance. This gives a broad overview of how comments and/or edits impact student performance. This is a necessary first step in the understanding of how peer-to-peer feedback behaviors have on author and editor performance. Furthermore, when dealing with a high volume and number of students, as well as the use of technology for statistics and analysis, the amount of peer feedback is easier to obtain than the quality. This means that the outputs of comments and edits are readily available in the form of learning analytic visualizations more so than measures of edit or comment quality and function. Furthermore, this type of information can be more potential ready use for instructors to better understand online peer editing and implement instructional design choices that may help students improve their writing skills.

To achieve this, the present study collects data on comments and edits from peer editing sessions from 76 students over 5 cases of peer editing. Since most extant research explored the role of peer editing in broad ways such as surveys or interviews, the field has not yet dug deeply into how the volume of different peer editing methods influence students' learning performance. This study looks at peer editing by measuring comments and edits in students’ written documents directly in a collaborative learning context. To measure the performance of students, the overall individual writing scores are representative of the students' learning outcomes and performance during the course. The existing literature discussed above suggests that, on balance, giving and receiving comments and/or edits will lead to better learning performance and based on this, the present study has four main hypotheses:

Students who receive more comments will perform better in their writing.

Students who give more comments will perform better in their writing.

Students who receive more edits will perform better in their writing.

Students who give more edits will perform better in their writing.

3. Methodology

3.1. participants and learning context.

There were 76 students engaged in peer editing of each other's work in 4 sections of a graduate scientific writing course at a Korean university. Each of the 4 course sections had between 16 to 22 students. Among the subjects, 49 subjects were master's students, and 27 were in a doctoral program. There were 22 females and 54 males. The average age of the students was 25.7 (SD = 3.6), with a minimum age of 21 and a maximum age of 39 among the participants in the present study. The purpose of the scientific writing course was to teach students to write a journal manuscript on their graduate research findings ( Zhang et al., 2021 ). The course was given in an online format, and pre-recorded video lectures were provided on the course learning management system for students to view at their convenience. The course consists of 10 instructional weeks that respectively include 4 to 8 lecture videos, totaling 56 lecture videos for the course. The average length of a course video is nearly 12 min and covers topics related to scientific writing for graduate STEM students.

The ten instructional weeks of the course were grouped into two-week units designed to provide instruction related to the five major sections of a journal manuscript: 1) Introduction, 2) Methodology, 3) Results, 4) Discussion & Conclusion, and 5) Abstract. In the first week of a given unit, students would watch a set of videos specific to the journal section of interest for that unit. Videos in this first week explained the purpose, function, characteristics, and conventions of the given section of a journal manuscript. After viewing this initial set of videos, students would attend a live session of the course with the course instructor using Zoom teleconferencing software. After leading a short discussion on the topics of the course videos and answering any student questions, the instructor would put students into small groups for collaborative learning activities to reinforce their learning regarding the concepts covered in the lecture videos.

The second week of the unit consisted of another set of lecture videos often providing instruction on writing style, language, and grammar related to the same manuscript section focused on in the first week of the unit. Prior to the Zoom meeting of the second week of the unit, students were instructed to compose a first draft of a journal article section of focus in the unit and bring it to the meeting. While no special instructions were given to students in terms of word count, students were advised to consult journal style guides and published papers in their fields of study in deciding on the length and format of their written assignments. At the Zoom meeting, the instructor led a short discussion and answered questions and then provided instruction for the peer editing session. Then, students grouped themselves into dyads, and the instructor moved them into breakout rooms so that they could peer edit one another's writing. In the first week of the semester, students filled out a short questionnaire on their major, degree program, areas of research interest or expertise, and the title of their research project or paper. This information was shared with the class through a spreadsheet so that students could choose a peer editing partner with research interests that were as aligned as possible with their own. Ethical approval from a KAIST Institutional Review Board (IRB) named “The Effects of Collaborative Notetaking on Learning Outcomes in Online and Blended Learning Environments'' was received before conducting the questionnaire.

A Google Doc was created by the course instructor for each member of the dyad for each of five peer editing sessions, which corresponded to the Introduction, Methodology, Results, Discussion & Conclusion, and Abstract sections. Students were instructed to copy and paste their first draft of the journal manuscript section into the corresponding peer editing Google Doc and to share with and provide editing privileges to their dyad member. The peer editing Google Doc contained instructions for the students on how to peer edit their partner's work, and a video on how to peer edit an assignment was provided on the course learning management system. The instructions provided in the video and within each peer editing Google Doc required the students to track any changes to their partner's paper using “suggesting mode” rather than “editing mode”. This was done so that the original author of the work could easily see any changes that were made and would easily be able to accept or reject any changes according to preference. In addition, students were encouraged to make use of the embedded comment feature within the Google Docs platform, which allows a collaborator to highlight a given section of text and embed a comment that shows up in the right margin of the document. Replies to such comments are possible, so that the author and editor can engage in a comment thread if they desire. After providing such edits and comments, reviewers were asked to grade the quality of the draft using a specialized rubric provided by the course instructor adapted from Clabough and Clabough (2016) . The rubric assessed five criteria: four criteria specific to the content and function of a given section of a journal article and one general criterion related to the clarity and readability of the writing, and allowed students to rate the quality level of each criteria as “poor,” “average,” or “excellent”, giving scores of 0, 1, and 2, respectively. Accordingly, these subscores were added up and amounted to a final score from 0 to 10.

At the end of this second live Zoom meeting for a given unit, students were instructed to consider their partner's feedback on the first draft of their assignment and to create a final draft for submission on the course learning management system for final grading by the course instructor. Students were given two days to complete the revision, and the course instructor provided comments, suggestions, edits, and a final grade out of 10 points using the same specialized rubric that was used for peer editing. This 10-point grade accounted for 10% of the student's final grade in the course. Completion and grading of the final draft marked the end of a given unit, and the following week would begin a new unit of the course until all sections of the paper were completed.

3.2. Research instruments

Comments. Students can develop critical thinking skills, improve the structure of their writing, and gain new insights and perspectives when provided with written comments from their classmates ( Sung et al., 2016 ). In the present study, comments refer to written feedback students receive from a peer editing partner on their individual writing using embedded commenting features within the Google Docs platform. Such embedded comments appear as small frames in the margin of the document. Prior research has shown that embedded comments can be used to provide feedback and assessment at a variety of levels, from superficial, such as grammar and spelling, to highly complex, including deeper conceptualizations and connections of knowledge ( Luo et al., 2016 ; Strijbos and Wichmann, 2018 ; Sung et al., 2016 ). Embedded comments can also be used by editors and coauthors to ask questions and engage in online discussions in the margins of the document. For the purposes of this study, the number of embedded comments and replies to comments within a given peer editing Google Doc serves as the comments variable.

Edit of others. When peer editing one another's writing, students change or delete the writing of the original author of a text. In prior research, an increase in such edits of others was shown to correlate positively with students' ability to write clearly and to support their claims with evidence ( Yim et al., 2017 ). The edits of others variable i s the total number of characters inserted by a collaborator after the collaborator deleted text from the original author. This definition was originally provided by Wang et al. (2015) in their paper presenting DocuViz, an add-on for Google Chrome that enables collaborative data, including edits of others, to be mined and visualized from Google Docs. In the present research, DocuViz was used to mine this editing data from each of the peer editing Google Docs.

Writing assignments. The primary assignments for the scientific writing course examined in this study were the five major sections of a research manuscript: 1) Introduction, 2) Methodology, 3) Results, 4) Discussion & Conclusion, and 5) Abstract. Using a rubric adapted from Clabough and Clabough (2016) , these writing assignments were assessed by the course instructor and given a grade from 0 to 10. These assignment grades were then tallied to give a total writing score out of 50 points, accounting for 50% of the total grade points for the course.

Correlational analyses were conducted to examine the connection between the variables and then evaluated for significance to test the hypotheses. The first step of looking into the research questions was an overview of the main variables that were used as a part of this study. As can be seen in Table 1 , the authors wrote on average 2588 words, with the longest piece of work being 6829 words, and the shortest being 410 words. The students performed well in regards to their writing score, with the average score being 41 out of a possible 50. Also, worth noting is the lowest writing score attained in the sample population (32) is considered a passing grade for the writing portion of this class. The comments received and comments given have the same mean score of 11.16 embedded comments as these variables are the inverse of each other. As with comments, the edits received and edits given number of key-strokes have the same mean, which in the case of edits was 3881.38 keystrokes.

Table 1

Descriptive statistics for the main variables used in the study.

To look more closely at the variables that could be analyzed as a part of this study, correlations between all main variables as well as author volume were calculated ( Table 2 ). The results show that receiving comments had a statistically significant positive association with writing score (.232∗). In contrast, receiving edits had a negative statistically significant association with writing score (-.325∗∗). In regards to the giving of comments and the giving of edits, neither variable had a statistically significant relationship with writing score.

Table 2

Correlations between all variables.

∗∗Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

∗Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

Notable on this table are the positive associations between author volume and writing score (.521∗∗), comments received (.466∗∗) and edits given (.270∗). This shows that authors who produced more words had higher writing results. Furthermore, individuals who wrote more words encouraged their peers to comment on them more. Finally, people who wrote more appeared to be more likely to edit the work of others. Another finding that can be seen in this table is the positive relationship between giving comments and receiving comments (.485∗∗). Furthermore, there was also a positive relationship between receiving edits and giving edits (.327∗∗). These two results suggest that pairs tended to fall into a pattern of engaging in the same types of peer-editing - either commenting, or editing.

5. Discussion

Although previous research has investigated online peer editing, it remains unclear how the giving and receiving of comments and edits affect student writing performance. The current study explores the influence of these aspects on student academic writing performance in higher education by using Google Docs. The results show that receiving comments is positively associated with student writing performance. However, receiving edits has a negative association with student writing. In terms of giving comments and giving edits, neither technique has a statistically significant association with writing performance.

The findings indicate that students who receive more comments will write better papers, which coincides with evidence suggesting that students may improve their writing performance after receiving comments from their peers in the learning process ( Ebadi and Rahimi, 2017 ; Huisman et al., 2018 , 2019 ; Shvidko, 2015 ; Zhang et al., 2021 ). Students may improve their work based on the feedback they received, which identifies their writing's strengths and faults ( Casey and Goodyear, 2015 ). Students may identify answers to difficulties raised by the reviewer because of self-reflection, and their writing may improve as a result ( Nicol et al., 2014 ). This finding may be also due to the positive perceptions and attitudes of the learners because looking at others' comments through Google Docs provides learners with enough time and space to think, judge, and choose to accept or reject these suggestions, and eventually enhance their writing skills ( Ebadi and Rahimi, 2017 ). All students are masters and PhD in present study; thus, student writing may be in high quality and students may be more likely to receive higher quality comments from their high-performing peers. On the contrary, some research revealed that not all kinds of comments are effective ( Jug et al., 2019 ; Ray and Singh, 2018 ). One possible interpretation of this statement is that some comments are not well-structured or well-considered, so that students refuse to accept them. However, this research found that comments as suggestions and effective learning resources are useful to enhance student academic writing. As a result, comments should be expressed directly and clearly, and they should be comprehended independently of the giver; otherwise, receivers may not be able to grasp them, becoming confused and, in some cases, refusing to provide feedback ( Hattie and Clarke, 2018 ; Holmes and Papageorgiou, 2009 ).

Another finding of the present study is that giving comments during online peer editing has no association with students' writing performance. This contrasts with previous literature where giving comments to their peers can promote students' critical thinking and metacognitive strategies, thereby enabling improvement of their writing skills ( Cho and Cho, 2011 ; Frank et al., 2018 ; Dunlosky et al., 2013 ; Nicol et al., 2014 ). The finding in the present study may be related to the concerns of some feedback givers. For instance, students may try to avoid social conflicts within groups by only giving praise or soft advice to others, which may lead them to not engage personally with others’ work ( Fong et al., 2018 ; Robertson, 2011 ). Therefore, perhaps instructions are needed to guide students on how to deliver comments at deeper levels to improve writing before conducting online peer editing so that the givers of comments can also benefit from peer editing.

The most surprising result of the present study also shows that receiving edits negatively correlates with student writing performance, suggesting that such behaviors may stop students from improving their writing skills. This finding seems to contradict the work of Mabbott and Bull (2006) , who claimed that students will be more sensitive to their mistakes after reading and judging the edits from their peers, which should lead to better performance. However, the negative correlation between receiving edits and student writing is in line with Liu and Edwards (2018) , who illustrated that students may be upset or question the ability of their peers when they only received edits related to grammar or spelling errors. In turn, the effects of peer editing may rely on the quality of the reviewed writings ( Cho and Cho, 2011 ). When the editors look through a paper of poor quality, too many grammar and spelling errors make it difficult to give in-depth edits, thereby limiting the effects of edits on their peer's writing. For low-quality writing, it is possible that their peers are confused about the writing itself so that they are not able to offer edits. Interestingly, the average amount of edits received by students was 3881.38 characters. Receiving such large volumes of edits during collaborative learning may increase the workload of students' reflection, and students may only choose to accept all suggested edits without considering their accuracy, which may lead to a worse outcome in writing performance.

It is suggested by the results of the current study that giving more edits in groups does not drive better writing performance. It refutes the claim that reviewing others' sentences and pointing out their mistakes is a useful method to look for information and double check their own understanding of concepts mentioned by their peers ( Wang et al. 2015 ; Yen et al., 2015 ). This result likely has several causes. The first is that students may lack experience in using online collaborative technologies and giving edits online through Google Docs, which may hinder them from participating in online peer editing and gaining benefits from it ( Ishtaiwa and Aburezeq, 2015 ). Ludemann and McMakin (2014) found negative relationships between the first experience as a peer editor and assignment grades; however, for the second and subsequent sessions, this correlation did not hold. In the present study, five peer editing sessions were conducted. According to Jeffery et al. (2016) , the accuracy of peer editing is greatly impacted by the number of reviewers, and they suggested that there should be at least three reviewers for one academic paper. Therefore, interaction between two people may influence the results, especially if the feedback givers have little experience in peer editing. The second possible explanation for the negative association found in the present study is that students try to edit others’ sentences kindly and superficially to avoid upsetting the author ( Birnholtz and Ibara, 2012 ; Coyle, 2007 ). This type of editing may distract the author without any benefit as the edits are superficial and not helpful in increasing writing performance.

There are also some other interesting findings in the present study. For instance, positive correlations were found between author volume and their writing scores, comments received, and edits given. It is possible that when students have a well-rounded understanding of the topic, they may hold a positive attitude and prefer to express more in their writing. In turn, they will get higher scores than those who did not put a lot of effort into writing assignments. In addition, when the author volume becomes higher, there are more materials that can be provided to their peers for feedback, so that students may offer more comments and edits to their peers ( Nicol et al., 2014 ).

There is also a positive relationship between comments received and comments given, and between edits received and edits given. When considering the influence of peer review, one should remember that every student is both a reviewer and a writer ( Cho and Cho, 2011 ). Specifically, students act as reviewers to comment or edit on others' drafts, and as authors, they receive comments or edits from other reviewers’ perspectives ( Cho and Cho, 2011 ). Thus, the effect of receiving comments/edits and the role of giving comments/edits need to be considered together.

6. Conclusion

The aim of this research was to explore how giving and receiving comments and edits influence students' writing performance. Since previous studies used broad methods to investigate students' perspectives on peer editing, this paper fills a gap in the research on online peer feedback by categorizing feedback as comments or edits and separately examining them in documents. One of the contributions of the present study is that it reveals receiving comments during online peer editing is a useful method to improve student writing performance, which provides empirical evidence that judging and reflecting on received comments enables students to enhance their writing skills. Interestingly, another finding from this research showed that there is a negative correlation between receiving edits and students' writing performance, which may be due to the large volume of edits and the low level of students’ writing abilities. However, there is no statistically significant correlation between giving comments and/or edits and student writing performance. These findings suggest two important recommendations for instructors facilitating online peer editing sessions: 1) encourage students to participate in self-reflection after receiving comments actively and 2) provide some instructions before peer editing on how to give deeper levels of comments and edits during online peer editing. For example, before online collaboration, instructors can show students the example of good peer feedback and point out what types of feedback can enhance their writing.

Since online learning has become increasingly popular, the present research is particularly relevant as it suggests new avenues for improving students' online writing performance in online settings. However, there are some limitations to this research. For instance, in this study, students could choose their own partners rather than having partners randomly assigned to conduct online peer editing. In this case, students may prefer to give kind suggestions or less edits to protect their friends' feelings, which may have a negative influence on the outcome of this research. Thus, future research should assign students to different groups randomly to increase the validity of research. Another limitation is that while this study accounts for edits and comments that were provided by peers within a Google Doc, it does not account for backchannel communication occurring outside the document, including discussions during Zoom video conferencing while the peers edited each other's’ work or subsequent communications proceeded via email or text messaging. While such backchannel communications would likely provide a rich source of data on students' collaborative processes, the collection of such information would be invasive to students' privacy and is not allowed by the institutional review board that granted permission for the present study. One other limitation is that the present study only took into account the number of comments and modifications, not their intention or quality. More extensive research in the future might take into account both the quantity and quality of comments and edits. More study could be done to develop a systematic method for accounting for these two factors. Although previous research has investigated the influence of peer editing on student academic writing, further exploration is needed on how giving and receiving peer feedback online affect students' writing. Since comments and edits, two popular modes of online editing, play an essential role in cooperative learning, more research is needed to explore the impact of peer editing in online contexts.

Declarations

Author contribution statement.

Han Zhang: Conceived and designed the experiments; Wrote the paper.

Galina Shulgina: Contributed reagents, materials, analysis tools or data; Wrote the paper.

Mik Fanguy: Performed the experiments.

Jamie Costley: Analyzed and interpreted the data.

Funding statement

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Data availability statement

Declaration of interests statement.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Additional information

This article is an output of a research project implemented as part of the Basic Research Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE University). Supplementary content related to this article has been published online at doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e09822 .

Appendix A. Supplementary data

The following is the supplementary data related to this article:

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• How to revise an essay in 3 simple steps

How to Revise an Essay in 3 Simple Steps

Published on December 2, 2014 by Shane Bryson . Revised on December 8, 2023 by Shona McCombes.

Revising and editing an essay is a crucial step of the writing process . It often takes up at least as much time as producing the first draft, so make sure you leave enough time to revise thoroughly. Although you can save considerable time using our essay checker .

The most effective approach to revising an essay is to move from general to specific:

• Start by looking at the big picture: does your essay achieve its overall purpose, and does it proceed in a logical order?
• Next, dive into each paragraph: do all the sentences contribute to the point of the paragraph, and do all your points fit together smoothly?
• Finally, polish up the details: is your grammar on point, your punctuation perfect, and your meaning crystal clear?

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Table of contents

Step 1: look at the essay as a whole, step 2: dive into each paragraph, step 3: polish the language, other interesting articles.

There’s no sense in perfecting a sentence if the whole paragraph will later be cut, and there’s no sense in focusing on a paragraph if the whole section needs to be reworked.

For these reasons, work from general to specific: start by looking at the overall purpose and organization of your text, and don’t worry about the details for now.

Double-check your assignment sheet and any feedback you’ve been given to make sure you’ve addressed each point of instruction. In other words, confirm that the essay completes every task it needs to complete.

Then go back to your thesis statement . Does every paragraph in the essay have a clear purpose that advances your argument? If there are any sections that are irrelevant or whose connection to the thesis is uncertain, consider cutting them or revising to make your points clearer.

Organization

Next, check for logical organization . Consider the ordering of paragraphs and sections, and think about what type of information you give in them. Ask yourself :

• Do you define terms, theories and concepts before you use them?
• Do you give all the necessary background information before you go into details?
• Does the argument build up logically from one point to the next?
• Is each paragraph clearly related to what comes before it?

Ensure each paragraph has a clear topic sentence that sums up its point. Then, try copying and pasting these topic sentences into a new document in the order that they appear in the paper.

This allows you to see the ordering of the sections and paragraphs of your paper in a glance, giving you a sense of your entire paper all at once. You can also play with the ordering of these topic sentences to try alternative organizations.

If some topic sentences seem too similar, consider whether one of the paragraphs is redundant , or if its specific contribution needs to be clarified. If the connection between paragraphs is unclear, use transition sentences to strengthen your structure.

Finally, use your intuition. If a paragraph or section feels out of place to you, even if you can’t decide why, it probably is. Think about it for a while and try to get a second opinion. Work out the organizational issues as best you can before moving on to more specific writing issues.

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Next, you want to make sure the content of each paragraph is as strong as it can be, ensuring that every sentence is relevant and necessary:

• Make sure each sentence helps support the topic sentence .
• Check for redundancies – if a sentence repeats something you’ve already said, cut it.
• Check for inconsistencies in content. Do any of your assertions seem to contradict one another? If so, resolve the disagreement and cut as necessary.

Once you’re happy with the overall shape and content of your essay, it’s time to focus on polishing it at a sentence level, making sure that you’ve expressed yourself clearly and fluently.

You’re now less concerned with what you say than with how you say it. Aim to simplify, condense, and clarify each sentence, making it as easy as possible for your reader to understand what you want to say.

• Try to avoid complex sentence construction – be as direct and straightforward as possible.
• If you have a lot of very long sentences, split some of them into shorter ones.
• If you have a lot of very short sentences that sound choppy, combine some of them using conjunctions or semicolons .
• Make sure you’ve used appropriate transition words to show the connections between different points.
• Cut every unnecessary word.
• Avoid any complex word where a simpler one will do.
• Look out for typos and grammatical mistakes.

If you lack confidence in your grammar, our essay editing service provides an extra pair of eyes.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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Shane finished his master's degree in English literature in 2013 and has been working as a writing tutor and editor since 2009. He began proofreading and editing essays with Scribbr in early summer, 2014.

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• 13 Essential Editing Tips to Use in Your Essay Writing

The good student strives constantly to achieve a better essay each time they write one.

It can be a challenge to find ways to keep improving, but one way of making your essays instantly better is effective editing. Editing your essay before you submit it could mean the difference between a good grade and a brilliant one, so it’s worth taking fifteen minutes or so before you send it off just checking through it to make sure that the structure and wording is as good as it can be. In this article, we give you some tips to think about when you’re editing your own writing. Keep these tips alongside you to use as a checklist and you can’t go far wrong!

1. Start by getting the structure right

If you have time, try to leave a bit of time between finishing your essay and starting the editing process. This gives you time to approach it feeling reasonably fresh; if you edit immediately after spending a long time on something, you might find that you’re so close to it that you’re unable to spot errors. When you do sit down to look through it, start by looking at its structure. Think about the overarching shape of the argument you’re developing and check that the points you’ve made help build your essay towards a logical conclusion. You may have written an essay with the points in order of when they occurred to you, but is this really the most sensible order? Does one point follow logically on from the other? Would it make the essay more interesting to include a certain point near the beginning to tease the reader, or are you revealing too much in the opening, meaning it would be better to move some points nearer the end? These are just a few of the ways in which it might be possible to improve the structure, so it helps to keep in mind your overall argument and ensure your structure puts it across as effectively as possible. With word processors now the primary means of writing essays, it couldn’t be easier to rearrange paragraphs into a more logical structure by dragging and dropping or cutting and pasting paragraphs. If you do this, don’t forget to reread the essay to ensure that the wording works with this new order, otherwise you may end up with a sentence leading into the wrong paragraph.

2. Prune long sentences and paragraphs

Whether you’ve exceeded your word count or not, long sentences and paragraphs should be edited because they can be trickier to read, and risk being boring or hard to follow. Try, therefore, to keep sentences to a maximum of two or three clauses (or segments). Avoid long paragraphs by starting a new one if you find one getting longer than three or four sentences: a wall of text can be off-putting to the reader. Leave a space between paragraphs if you’re typing your essay, as we’re doing in this article. Another way of keeping sentences to a reasonable length is to go through what you’ve written and tighten up the wording. If you find yourself writing long sentences, try to look for ways in which you can reword them to express what you’re trying to say more concisely. You’ll probably find numerous instances of phrases that take many words to say what could be said in two or three.

3. Keep overly complicated language in check

It’s going to look obvious if you’ve had a thesaurus next to you while writing, just so that you can replace all the simple words with more complicated ones. The thing is, it doesn’t always make you look intelligent; you may, for instance, inadvertently choose the wrong synonym, not realising that even close synonyms can have subtly different meanings or connotations. Sometimes using big words where simple ones would suffice can seem contrived and pompous; aim for clear, concise language to avoid being verbose or pretentious. That’s not to say you shouldn’t use more complex words at all – just choose the situation carefully and don’t overdo it.

4. Watch for repetition of ideas and words

It’s easy to repeat yourself without realising it when you’re writing, but the editing process is there to enable you to spot this before your teacher or lecturer sees it. As you read through your essay, keep a look out for ideas you’ve repeated and delete whichever repetitions add nothing to your essay (don’t forget that the first instance of the idea may not be the most appropriate place for it, so consider which is the best moment to introduce it and delete the other mentions). On a related note, look out for instances in which you’ve laboured the point. Going on about a particular point for too long can actually undermine the strength of your argument, because it makes you look as though you’re desperately grappling to find supporting facts; sometimes a simple, clear statement with a brief piece of evidence to back it up is all that’s needed. You should be equally wary of repetition of words within the same sentence or paragraph. It’s fine to repeat common words such as “the”, obviously, but it’s best to avoid using the same connecting words, such as “also”, more than once in the same paragraph. Rephrase using alternative expressions, such as “what’s more”. More unusual words should be used just once per paragraph – words such as “unavoidable”, for example – unless it’s for emphasis.

5. Don’t rely on the spellcheck

It’s a tip we’ve told you before, but it’s worth repeating because it’s very important! The spellcheck will not pick up every single error in your essay. It may highlight some typos and misspellings, but it won’t tell you if you’ve inadvertently used the wrong word altogether. For example, you may have meant to write the word “from”, but accidentally mistyped it as “form” – which is still a word, so the spellchecker won’t register it. But it’s not the word you meant to write.

6. Spotting typos

It’s said that if you read through your work backwards, you’re more likely to spot typos. This is probably because it’s giving you a new perspective on what you’ve written, making it easier to spot glaring errors than if you read through it in the order in which you wrote it and in which you know what to expect. So, start with the last sentence and keep going in reverse order until you get to the beginning of your essay. Another tip is to print out your essay and take a red pen to it, circling or underlining all the errors and then correcting them on the computer later. It’s often easier to read a document from a printed version, and it also means that you can follow what you’re doing by touching each word with the end of your pencil to make sure you’re not skimming over any errors.

7. Omit unnecessary words and eradicate weasel words

Without even realising it, you’ve probably used plenty of unnecessary words in your writing – words that add to the word count without adding to the meaning – and you’ll find that your writing works just as well without them. An example is the word “very”, which almost always adds nothing to what you’re trying to say. As Mark Twain said, “Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be”. Weasel words are worse, as they are used to hide weak or objectionable arguments. A study of Wikipedia found that these tend to fall into three different categories: numerical vagueness (such as “many people say” without specifying who these people are), the use of the passive voice to distance the writer from what they’re saying (“it is often said”, for example, without saying by whom it is often said), and the use of adverbs designed to soften a point (such as “probably”). Look out for these in your own writing and rephrase to remove them; they are disingenuous and your essay will be stronger without them.

8. Remove tautologies

A tautology is a stylistic error involving redundant words, in this case the use of two consecutive words that mean the same thing, such as “the big giant” (referring simply to a “giant” would have been sufficient to convey the meaning). Students often use them when they’re trying to make their writing wordier, not realising that they simply make their writing worse.

9. Watch the commas

People tend either to put too many commas into a sentence, or too few. Too many, and the sentence sounds broken and odd; too few, and the reader has to read the sentence several times to figure out what you’re trying to say, because it comes out in a long, jumbled mess. The secret is to put commas in where you would naturally pause when speaking aloud. If it helps, try reading your writing aloud to see if it flows. Where you would pause for slightly longer, a semi-colon might be more appropriate than a comma. Use a semi-colon to connect two independent clauses that would work as two separate sentences.

10. Consistent spelling

Some words have more than one correct spelling, and the important thing is to be consistent with which one you use. You could, if you wanted to make your life a little easier, delve into the settings on your word processor and manipulate the spellcheck so that it highlights the version you decided against – or even autocorrects to the right version. If you’re writing in the UK, ensure that your word processor’s default language is set to UK English so that you don’t end up inadvertently correcting English spellings to US ones (“colour” to “color”, for example).

11. Get rid of exclamation marks and ellipses

In virtually every case, you don’t need to use an exclamation mark, and – at least in academic writing – your use of one may result in your writing not being taken quite so seriously. Only use them in exceptional circumstances when you really want to convey a feeling of surprise or outrage. Ellipses (“…”) should also be avoided except when you’re indicating the truncation of a quote from another writer (that is, where you left a bit out).

12. Attribute quotations

Quotations from authors or academic writers should be attributed to them. As you read through your essay, keep a look out for any quotations you’ve mentioned and make sure that you say where they’re from. If you’re writing an essay for university, a footnote would be an appropriate way of citing another writer. If you are using footnotes, this gives an extra area on which to focus your editing skills; ensure that all footnotes are consistently formatted, and don’t forget to put a bibliography containing all the books you’ve used at the end.

13. Consistent formatting

The appearance of your essay matters, too – and the formatting should not be neglected when you’re in editing mode. This means being consistent with your use of fonts, using italics or underline for emphasis rather than using them interchangeably, ensuring that the spacing between lines is consistent throughout, and other such minor aesthetic points. This may not sound very important, but consistent formatting helps your essay look professional; if you’ve used different fonts or line spacing or anything like that, your essay will look a mess even if what you’ve said in it is good. You could make use of the pre-populated formatting options in your word processor to ensure consistency throughout, with header 1 for the title, header 2 for subheadings and ‘normal text’ for the body of the document. If you find that there are too many things on this list to think about in one go when you’re reading through your essay, you could read through it several times looking out for different things each time. All this may seem a lot to think about when you’ve already put in so much effort to write the essay in the first place, but trust us: it will pay off with a sleek and polished piece.

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No. Typely is completely free and we plan on keeping it that way. We are considering some advanced features however that might be available under a premium plan.

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• Oakland University
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OUWB’s Afonso, Wasserman named Dean’s Distinguished Professors

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Two professors from Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine have each achieved the faculty rank of Dean’s Distinguished Professor. 

The Oakland University Board of Trustees approved the title changes recommended by Oakland University President Ora Hirsch Pescovitz, M.D., at its regular meeting on June 28, 2024.

Nelia Afonso, M.D., professor, and Jason Wasserman, Ph.D., professor — both from OUWB’s Department of Foundational Medical Studies — each received the title.

“This prestigious recognition is not merely a personal achievement but a testament to the collaborative efforts of our academic community,” said Afonso.

Wasserman shared similar thoughts.

“The thing that means the most to me is that it was the result of a nomination of at least 10 of my colleagues,” he said. “It’s a really nice honor.”

The rank of Dean’s Distinguished Professor was established in 2021 upon approval from the OU Provost and the OU Assistant Vice President of Academic Human Resources. It’s a permanent, honorific title that acknowledges contributions of employed, full-time, tenured faculty at the rank of professor.

According to the recommendations from Pescovitz, the designation “shall be afforded to awardees who have superior teaching skills that encompass the breadth and depth of their discipline, a distinguished record of public service, and scholarly, creative, and artistic achievements.”

‘Truly been a privilege’

Sarah Lerchenfeldt, Pharm.D., associate professor and interim co-chair, Department of Foundational Medical Studies, nominated Afonso.

In her nomination, Lerchenfeldt said Afonso “exemplifies the criteria” for the title.

“Since joining OUWB as a founding faculty member, she has demonstrated unparalleled dedication to medical education, significantly enhancing both the academic and practical aspects of these fields,” wrote Lerchenfeldt.

The nomination noted Afonso’s scholarly excellence, particularly in the domains of education, clinical skills, women’s health, and vaccine hesitancy. Lerchenfeldt said that Afonso was principal investigator for the Merck Investigator Studies program project called “Promoting Vaccine Confidence in Medical and Dental Students.” The project secured about $179,000 in funding.

The nomination also pointed to Afonso’s efforts to develop and refine the curriculum for OUWB’s Art and Practice of Medicine (APM) course, previous awards she received, commitment to service, and leadership roles with organizations like the Southeast Michigan Center for Medical Education.

“Dr. Afonso’s tenure at OUWB has been marked by a commitment to advancing medical education, research, and community health,” wrote Lerchenfeldt. “Her work not only reflects the values and mission of our institution, but also sets a benchmark for academic and professional excellence.”

Afonso said it has “truly been a privilege” to receive the title.

“I have been fortunate to be part of this medical school since its inception and I am grateful for the numerous opportunities provided that have fostered my growth as a physician, educator, and researcher,” she said. “I appreciate the dedication and commitment of our faculty and staff, whose support has been instrumental in implementing various curricular innovations.”

‘Invaluable member of OUWB faculty’  

Wasserman , who joined OUWB in 2013, was nominated by a group of 10 other faculty from the Department of Foundational Medical Studies.

They called him a “prolific and influential scholar” on several topics: homelessness, clinical bioethics, and Holocaust medicine.

“His scholarship and research range from core bioethics topics, such as autonomy and informed consent, to empirical research and qualitative inquiry into homelessness and medical ethics,” they wrote, and noted that he has published three books, 12 book chapters and supplements, 64 peer-reviewed journal articles, 22 editor-reviewed articles, and seven invited articles.

“Dr. Wasserman’s extensively cited research has contributed to important debates surrounding ethics in medical education, care for homeless individuals, pediatric ethical concerns, euthanasia, the rights of patients without decision-making capacity, and immunization policy,” wrote the nominators.

They also noted Wasserman’s roles in shaping the Medical Humanities and Clinical Bioethics (MHCB) curriculum, replacing traditional essay assignments with extemporaneous self-reflection videos, development of interactive iBooks, serving as a mentor to more than 50 OUWB students for their  Embark  projects, and developing a national training course in bioethics for the Arnold P. Gold Foundation.

The nominators also mentioned Wasserman’s history of service. In 2020, he was appointed as one of only two Provost Fellows for Faculty Diversity at Oakland University. In 2022, he was honored with the OU Founder’s Day Award for Faculty Excellence in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. He also chaired the admissions committee for five years, served as director of student professionalism for nine years, co-founded  Street Medicine Oakland , launched the Center for Moral Values in Health Medicine, and more.

And he has plans to do even more, including launching a new student-led journal on ethics, humanities, and social justice, and a health care ethics debate tournament that will be open to all OU students.  

“One of the reasons I came to OUWB was because it was a new school and there was a lot of opportunity to be entrepreneurial,” he said. “I didn’t want to go to some well-established place where the expectation is you teach your courses, you write papers, and otherwise just let things run.”

For more information, contact Andrew Dietderich, senior marketing specialist, OUWB, at [email protected] .

To request an interview, visit the OUWB Communications & Marketing  webpage .

This work is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License .