Emma for Students Lesson 2: Peer Review and Graded Documents

Transcription

1 Emma for Students Lesson 2: Peer Review and Graded Documents Viewing a List of Class Documents When you start to do peer reviews, you may want to see all the papers that have been submitted and are ready for review. One way to view these papers is to select the Project (e.g., Robotics), Class Docs by Stage and the Stage that you want to see (e.g., Draft 1). You also may want to see all the papers that a particular person has written. In this case, select Class Docs by Name and select the name of the person you want. Downloading a Paper from <emma> To download a paper so that you can edit it, find the paper and click on the Download button. Peer Review 1 2-Sep-08

2 You will be asked if you want to save the file or open it with OpenOffice or NeoOffice. Choose the one you want and click on OK. It usually is best to save the file to disk. Save the file with another name, such as AuthorName-Paper1-YourName for example, JaneDoe-Paper1-Frank The document will be saved as an OpenOffice document file with an.odt extension. Make sure you save it in a place where you can find it later. Pasting Questions into the Document Your instructor may direct you to copy a set of questions and paste them at the end of each paper you are reviewing. These questions probably will look like the below. Your instructor will tell you where they can be found in <emma> -- probably in the Course Content section. 1. Thesis In a sentence, describe the author's apparent thesis in your own words. (Don't just write down the thesis statement!!) Does the thesis statement make clear exactly what stand the writer is taking on this topic? Does it inform the reader of what the writer's main arguments will be? Does the thesis come early enough to serve as an effective map for the reader? Is the thesis statement so obvious or generally accepted that it doesn't really need to be argued? Is it narrow enough to be convincingly argued in a paper of this length? Is it stated clearly? Any suggestions? 2. Argument and Analysis Look at the specific arguments used by the writer to persuade you of his or her claim. If in any paragraph the specific argument or topic sentence is not clear, make a note there to the writer. Then, find the argument where the support seems the weakest and suggest ways to strengthen it. Is there any place where the writer seems to stray from the point of the paragraph, or where the paragraph itself seems to stray from the point of the paper overall? 3. Coherence/Clarity Are there any words or phrases that you find unclear, vague, or general? Is there any unneccessary repetition in the paper (of ideas or of phrasing)? Are there any quotations that are not integrated smoothly into the author's phrasing? Are there any places where you think the transitions are unclear? 4. Overall Effect of the Paper Does the paper convince you of its thesis? Do you have any suggestions? If so, type them here. As a reader, ask yourself the so what? question at the end of the paper. In other words, ask yourself, What does the writer want me to take away from this paper? And what do I actually take away from this paper? Then write your answers here. Peer Review 2 2-Sep-08

3 In general, what could the writer do to persuade you more thoroughly? Are there objections you can think of that the writer should address? Any other type of element that could be added to persuade you more thoroughly? If so, type them here. Find these questions in <emma> and copy them. Open the document you are reviewing using OpenOffice or NeoOffice Writer and then paste the questions at the end of the document. Save the file again after pasting in the questions. Inserting Notes into a Paper Open the paper using OpenOffice or NeoOffice Writer. Suppose you notice a typo in the paper you are reviewing for example using the word form instead of from, which may not be picked up by a spell-check program. Place the cursor on the right side of the offending text. Do not highlight the text simply place the cursor on its right. Select Insert, Note from the main menu Peer Review 3 2-Sep-08

4 Type the note in the Text box of the window that appears. If you would like to identify yourself as the author of the note, click on the Author button. This will add your initials as well as the date and time to the note. When you are finished with the note, click on OK. Note: If you are not identified as the author, see Appendix A: Adding User Data at the end of this lesson. You now should see a small yellow box at the right of the word. If you move the cursor over the yellow box, the note will appear. You can edit the note by double-clicking on the yellow box and making the changes. Remember to save the document after you have added your notes. Peer Review 4 2-Sep-08

5 Uploading a Reviewed Document to <emma> After you have reviewed a document, you will need to upload the reviewed copy back into <emma>. Make sure you have saved the reviewed file with another name, such as AuthorName-Paper1-YourName for example, JaneDoe-Paper1-Frank If <emma> is not open, do so, and then login. After logging in, select the Course and then click on Projects and Upload Documents. Be certain that the correct project has been selected. Browse to the reviewed document and click on the Upload button. Just as you do when you upload your own documents, identify the Title, Project, and Stage. Be sure that you set Access to Peers. You also must identify the original author of the paper. Using the drop-down list, identify the student who is the original author of the document. After identifying the original author, click on Update. Peer Review 5 2-Sep-08

6 After uploading the document, you should see it listed among your documents. You also will see your reviewed version among the class documents. Adding a Quick Comment to a Document To add a quick comment to a document, click on its name. Peer Review 6 2-Sep-08

7 Click on the Quick Comments button at the top of the document. This will send you to the bottom of the document. Click on the Post comment button. Enter your comment in the Comments screen. Click on Submit when you are finished. You will see the comment waiting to be confirmed. If the comment is OK, doing other things with <emma> will remove the confirmation window. The comment will be displayed below the document. Peer Review 7 2-Sep-08

8 Viewing a Peer-Reviewed Document You can view one of your reviewed documents by clicking on its name, either in the list of your documents or the list of class documents. This will display the document with the corrections in the margin. The position of each correction is indicated by the correction s number surrounded by brackets { 1 }. The correction is displayed on the right side. You also can download the reviewed document and open it in OpenOffice or NeoOffice. You will see a small yellow box where a note has been left by the student who reviewed your paper. If you sweep the cursor over the yellow box, the note will appear. Peer Review 8 2-Sep-08

9 Viewing a Professor s Suggestions in a Graded Document Your professor probably will have used the Humanities 101 Grading Template to help grade your paper. If you click on the name of a graded document, you will see the paper displayed within <emma>. The rectangle on the screen with Unity On/Off and so forth indicates that the grading rubric has been used with the document. If you read through the document, you will see words written in various colors, depending on what kind of error they have made. If you move the cursor over the word or phrase, a description of the error pops up on the screen. If you click on the colored words, a more detailed description of the error from the St. Martin s Handbook will be displayed. Peer Review 9 2-Sep-08

10 The error also will be displayed if you download the document To download a graded document from <emma> into OpenOffice, find the document in your My Documents list. Sweep the cursor over the inverted triangle on the right side of the document s name and click on Download in the menu that appears. When you read over the downloaded essay, you will see that some of the text has a different color. If you open up the Style and Formatting window and click the mouse on the text, the problem s description will be emphasized in the list. Peer Review 10 2-Sep-08