Completing the peer-review process as a reviewer was a long process but one that is very valuable for both the peer-reviewer and the author. As a peer-reviewer, I found reading the papers to be very interesting. I believe it made me think more critically about what I was reading while also staying open minded when I was reviewing the work. It made me more critical because instead of simply reading and absorbing the information, I was paying more attention to how the topics all flowed together and how it developed the thesis – it made me a more actively engaged reader. I think it also made me more open-minded because I was trying to think about both sides of the topic and how they worked together.
The peer-review process also helped me figure out a few ways I could improve my own writing. For example one paper I peer-reviewed set up the paper really well by adding a quick statement of what the paper would examine. I think this helped the paper flow easier because I had an idea of what to expect. I also noticed that it is easy to focus a lot on one thing but then cut short others and so when I look over my own essay I want to make sure I am not spending too much time being redundant in one area and to include a diverse variety of evidence. For example, including multiple studies that say about the same thing is not as effective or useful as using different types of evidence.
Although it was a long process, I think peer-reviewing is a very valuable resource and way to review work and find what is lacking and what was done well. I can imagine that the peer-review process with experts in this field is even more valuable tool because they can check the validity and understand the importance of the evidence to a greater extent than we can as students.
