Unit 7 Peer Review

I think peer reviews are an essential part of the learning process because constructive criticism and feedback helps see things that may have been missed the first time around and also to see what areas are going well.  I know there are times in my writing where I am unsure of myself due to trying to be a perfectionist and when I receive reviews from my peers  they help to let me know that I am on track.  My experiences with peer review have been pretty good.  They seem to get better as the terms roll by and the classmates get to know one another better.  In the beginning it was a bit more difficult being new and not knowing anyone, I didn't receive a lot of feedback when school first started.  This could have been because I was usually later posting than everyone else, however this made me look for the people at the end of the week that didn't have any comments so that I could give them some positive feedback.  Sometimes I find it a bit more difficult to find people that don't have any comments already.  When someone has a ton of comments it makes it harder to write a review that isn't saying what everyone else has already said.

So far I don't think I have had any Ah Ha! moments during my 3 terms.  Mostly because these 3 terms have been extremely stressful with moving last term and then moving again this term.  I usually end up having to cram assignments and work and there are many days where my brain decides to just not function at all.  Good thing I am good at turning my stress into facilitating stress when I have to get things done last minute.  Somehow I always manage to get things done and do a decent job at it, every now and then I have to turn something in that I know I am going to lose a few points on but have ran down to the last minute.  Granted I wish that my life could go a bit more smoothly so I didn't have to stress and cram at the last minute.  I may be able to get the work done but while doing so I'm not the most pleasant to be around while trying to get it done.  I'm pretty lucky too when it comes to research and being able to find what I need to write my paper on.  Same with writing, I guess it's more of an all or nothing kind of thing.  I either have terrible writing block and can't get anything accomplished or I am down to little time and it all comes pouring out.  I wish my writing would come pouring out when I want it to not when I am freaking out because I have only a handful of hours to produce something.

I don't think there has been anything too shocking or intriguing during the writing process or during my research.  I've always known that artificial sweeteners are terrible and why, but it is nice to have a lot of data to back up why it is and to actually have a paper on it.  Makes me feel like people will be more willing to listen to what I have to say instead of just brushing me off like I'm some idiot or something.  It's also nice to be able to use what I learned from last writing class and apply it to this writing class and also learn more to perfect the skills of writing.  I'm still a bit nervous for future classes when they get harder and the grading gets harder too, but my husband has faith that I'll just get smarter as the classes get harder.