Myth 2: Only the Author Benefits From Peer Feedback

Peer feedback is an activity where one person reads and comments on someone else’s writing. This process is supposed to improve the quality of the writing. Therefore, it is widely viewed as an exercise that solely benefits the writer, as they are the one receiving the help from others. This opinion was confirmed in my primary research. In my survey I sent out, when responding to a question asking respondents to describe positive or negative experiences with peer feedback, all 16 answers related to receiving peer feedback. Some students were fans of peer review responding, “Most experiences I have had with peer response/feedback have been positive. I have always received good feedback that has helped me improve my writing,” while others described some of their peer feedback pet peeves: “I like the commentary but I do not like one word comments.” As shown through the quotes, the respondents focused on the feedback they had received, and avoided describing their experiences related to giving feedback to their peers and how that may have impacted them. While the whole point of peer review is to improve someone else’s paper, whether it's checking for grammatical errors or logical fallacies, this does not mean that the peer reviewer doesn’t benefit from this process as well. Having the ability to give quality peer feedback has been shown to lead to improved writing and academic performance. Additionally, the process of giving peer feedback develops critical thinking skills, which in turn betters their writing abilities and allows them to be better self-reviewers (Lundstrom and Baker 2009). This is further supported by Southwestern University’s Writing Page which states that “Studies have shown that even strong writers benefit from the process of peer review: students report that they learn as much or more from identifying and articulating weaknesses in a peer’s paper as from incorporating peers’ feedback into their own work” (n.d.).

The benefits of peer reviewing are shown in the study conducted and published by Lundstrom and Baker. To conduct the survey, a class of students was split into two groups, one that learned how to use peer feedback and the other which learned how to give peer feedback. Both groups were also given writing lessons throughout the duration of the class. The students were given timed writing assessments before and after the semester to assess their writing abilities and any improvements they had made. The group of students who were taught how to give peer feedback showed significantly more improvement at the end of the semester than those that were taught how to use peer feedback in all of the writing categories, which included overall writing, organization, development, cohesion, vocabulary, structure, and mechanics (2009).