Miscellaneous Assignment 11: Editing Essays

Summary: You will have the opportunity to edit your colleagues' drafts of their research papers with an expectation of making those papers even stronger.

Purposes: (1) To give you further opportunity to reflect on writing; (2) to provide evidence for your editing portfolios; (3) to help your colleagues improve their essays so that the final versions are excellent; (4) to provide us with fodder for an activity.

Due: Thursday, 11 November 2010

To Turn In: Return an evaluation form and a marked-up copy of the essay to each of two colleagues. Give photocopies of those documents to me.

Assignment:

Using our standard evaluation form, metrics you have learned elsewhere, and your own reflective abilities, edit the work of two colleagues (as assigned below).

Groupings:

• A edits B and C
• B edits C and D
• D edits E and F
• E edits F and G
• F edits G and H
• H edits I and J
• J edits K and L
• K edits L and M
• L edits M and N
• M edits N and O
• O edits P and A
• P edits A and B

Note:

In conferences, most of my students noted that you like to see more than just this could be better or this is wrong. In particular, you'd like to see suggestions of how to improve your writing. As editors, you should consider it appropriate to provide such advice.