UCSB History 133P, Spring 2004
Proseminar on German History (course homepage)

Prof. Marcuse (homepage)
marcuse@history.ucsb.edu

The Peer Reviewing Process
(pdf version for printing)

Once substantial portions of your papers are complete, you will give them to your peer reviewer for correction and comment. Please pay careful attention to the relevant sections of Rampolla (4th ed. 30ff--does it have a thesis and respond to counterevidence; 53-83--does it obey the conventions of history writing, not plagiarising, and documentation?).

It is best to schedule submissions of your paper to me and your reviewer in sequence: incorporate the feedback of your reviewer and print out a clean copy to submit to me, or vice-versa. Please be sure to schedule these readings carefully. Reviewers should take care to return corrected drafts in a timely fashion.

Based on the version available on the last day of classes, peer reviewers should submit a written review, about 2-3 pages in length, to the author, and to me (the professor). These are due, at the latest, on the final paper deadline (final exam time). But try to give a copy to the author a day or two earlier, if you can.

While the first review(s) may take the form of marginal comments and editing marks on the text of the draft, the final peer review will resemble a book review (see Rampolla, p. 24f). It should contain/address the following:

  • description:
    • information about the main topic of the paper,
    • how the paper is organized (e.g. chronologically, thematically),
    • the main source material, and
    • what you perceive its main arguments and conclusions to be.
  • evaluation:
    • the relevance and comprehensiveness of the sources,
    • the accuracy of individual points of analysis and interpretation,
    • the importance, persuasiveness and validity of those arguments
      (are you convinced?),
    • the attention to counterevidence,
    • the clarity and style of writing, and
    • suggestions as to how the paper might be improved.

prepared for web by H. Marcuse, May 20, 2004, updated ...
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