With my role as peer editor, the way I directed my comments for them was straightforward and tried to provide a solution to a problem or maybe an alternative if the problem I found in their draft was not too major. I tried to be as direct and clear as I could, leaving arrows and highlighting text at exact locations on their drafts. There was some hesitation to giving feedback at first, not because I wanted to be nice, but because I did not want to offer advice on something I am not as knowledgeable about and give wrong advice. As a peer editor I would like to think that I was helpful in giving assistance to what they could fix. Something I could have done differently is spend a little more time on peer editing because I think spending more time would have allowed to give even more accurate descriptions to what can be done to fix any problems that are found in the draft.

Comments to peers:

1) In your essay there are two things that work best, one of those being argument, which is major. For your thesis you definitely have something to argue against saying that Coates claims whites are living “in a superficial state.” The other thing that works best in your essay is the use of evidence, though it can need some work since you have paragraphs that have ample use of quotation, but not enough engagement or analysis after it. There’s some promising claims that you include in your thesis, but at times it seems to be some obvious statement about the book, like when you say “for anyone who is not his son, an unfiltered first-hand account revealing the severity of the nation’s racial politics.” A few other problems that I noticed throughout the essay is that some paragraphs do not use quotations at all like the last paragraph on page 2, which can make it difficult to provide insight on the topic sentence or further develop your thesis in the essay. I also think that you have a weak thesis because it does seem to struggle a bit, because it is argumentative, but it can be revised further to make it a little less confusing. You can also focus more on your topic sentences when revising the essay because they may not show a clear connection to your thesis, for example on the paragraph where you bring in Michelle Alexander’s review, it sounds a little cloudy and does not address the thesis directly.

2) In your draft, your topic sentences seem to be going along with what you had to say in your thesis. Some of the issues that I noticed to be major in your draft is that at times the draft does seem to struggle a bit with your overuse of quotations in a paragraph, more specifically found at the end of your 6th paragraph on page 4 when you are explaining the meaning of Samori’s name and the choice of picking the struggle over the dream. Some of the other minor issues that I found in revising your draft is that there is some fluff throughout it and there is some absence of clarity which you can clear up with evidence from the book or maybe one of your outside sources, like when explaining that the Dreamers are “godlike.”  Your conclusion seems to be some generalization, like what is the “never ending night,” but the last quote did surprise me and made me think about how others who read the essay will be left with the thought of destruction of the black body is tradition and part of America’s “heritage.” Two of the major things that I found worked best in your essay was the way that you set up the argument in your thesis and in paragraphs, as well as organizing your paragraphs in a way that helped develop your thesis. Your topic sentences do a good job of going back to elements in your thesis rather than restating what was said in your thesis. One of the sentences that needs some revision is the one topic sentence in your conclusion where Coates is only able to offer one piece of “solid” advice.