On the Art of Peer-Editing: Best Practices

This course has required me to step outside my comfort zone. I pretty much never showed anyone my writing before I had polished it to my own personal satisfaction, but Writing the Field has changed that. I had the pleasure of participating in two peer-editing sessions in class, and you know what? The world didn’t burn down. My ego wasn’t shattered. No one tore my work into a bunch of small pieces and tossed it into the air like confetti. The point is everything was alright and I received some extremely useful feedback for my final paper, and had the chance to reciprocate with useful feedback to others.

Was I really ever such a solitary writing creature though? I think not. In high school, my best friend and I frequently read each other’s work before submitting it, providing organizational and stylistic comments to help enhance our respective papers. Both of us also write fiction, and we have writing club every so often where we sometimes send each other our work. A crowning achievement we shared was getting our individual short stories published in a small literary magazine. It felt incredibly vulnerable to actually submit my work and have the depths of my soul exposed, but I was ultimately super proud of myself for taking that risk.

Other than sharing work with my best friend, having my Dad look over my work for grammar issues (he has eyes like a hawk when it comes to that), having professors review university and scholarship applications, and the peer-editing sessions in Writing the Field, most of my peer-editing experiences were about me looking at someone else’s work rather than having someone else looking at my own. I’ve peer-edited for multiple university friends, but I seldom let anyone peer-edit for me.

There was one friend in particular for whom I often peer-edited. She saw me as a strong writer and wanted my eyes on her work. I took this as a massive compliment and was honoured to be trusted in this way (it’s scary having people see stuff with less-than-perfect polish), and it was also super cool to see her writing get better and better over the course of the academic year. My friend later chose to apply for law school and asked me to review and comment on her already-impressive application before she submitted it. I felt so proud of her when she got accepted into the program!

Could I have asked her or any of my other university friends to peer-edit my work? Absolutely. I know any of them would have been happy to do it. Did I ever ask them? Nope.

I’ve wracked my brain for why this seems to be my pattern, being perfectly happy to peer-edit for others and incredibly reluctant to allow anyone to peer-edit for me. I came up with two answers. Once I have found a way I like for doing things, I don’t like changing it. This definitely applies with my writing process. For a long time, I mostly saw peer-editing of my work as an unnecessary hassle that I just didn’t want getting in the way of my process. I also feel sharing my writing is sharing a part of my soul, and that vulnerability is hard to get used to. While my work is “professional” it’s also “personal” because it comes from me.

Now, how do I overcome all this? Well, encouraging myself to be open to new things in Writing the Field has certainly helped, as well as being realistic about how much I can do at once. For instance, while I know it would be overwhelming to change a lot of my note-taking process at the same time, I can gradually make small changes. So far, I have made some tweaks in terms of how I take notes by being more deliberate with adding my own thoughts on a reading’s content and trying to make connections to other things I’ve read. In this way and with this similar strategies, I have been able to enhance my reading and writing processes since starting grad school.

The vulnerability piece is a tougher nut to crack, but to paraphrase what HB says in his chapter on getting academic writing out the door (Chapter 7 of this amazing book), sometimes you just need to jump in and start swimming. This also is sound advice for peer-editing.

I also believe that having a solid list of best practices for peer-editing will help me get over these snags and allow everyone involved in the process to reap significant benefits. Through trial and error, both in Writing the Field and elsewhere, I have figured out what I like. Here are my best practices for peer-editing.

As the writer, be specific with what you want. As the editor, get clarification on this. If you want someone to peer-edit your work, you owe it to them and to yourself to be clear on why you want that done. Otherwise, the peer-editing process is aimless. The writer may not get feedback they can use at their stage of the writing process and the editor may have wasted valuable time giving unhelpful feedback. In class, I found the more specific I was with what I wanted, the better feedback I got. I also found it helpful to explain to my editors where exactly I was at in the writing process, as that context helped them with their comments.

From the editor’s point of view, if the writer has not been clear on what they want you to look at, just ask. When I’ve neglected to do so, I’ve always spent far too much time peer-editing. To avoid this, just have a conversation with each other before getting into the process!

Be respectful of other people’s time. This goes for both the writer and the editor. The writer needs to make it clear to the editor when the deadline is to receive feedback and they also need to give the editor enough time to get the work done. Related to this, the writer needs to provide basic information like the approximate length of the work to help the requested editor make an informed decision about whether or not to accept the project. The editor needs to respect any deadline and also needs to know upfront if they have to politely decline due to not having the time to do a good job.

I just about learned that last point the hard way. There was one time in my undergrad studies where I had too much peer-editing to do towards the end of term, plus there had been no conversations about what I should look at specifically. As a result, I probably spent too much time peer-editing while I was already busy enough with my own end-of-term projects. Thankfully, I didn’t miss any of my own academic deadlines, my colleagues got their work back on time and I did solid work on everything, but it was not a fun time for me. I’m now choosier about peer-editing during my busy periods.

Provide clear, specific feedback. The editor must ensure the feedback is usable and allows the writer to improve their work. Having that initial conversation about what the writer wants feedback on will help things go well.

As part of my teaching assistantship, I grade my students and provide them with written feedback. (I know this isn’t exactly peer-editing because I’m grading a “final” version of an assignment, but the point still stands.) There have been times where students want further clarification and I’m obliged to ask myself what exactly I meant by a comment like “effective summary” or “some elements missing from the discussion”. The moral of this story is as the editor, determine what you want to convey and then say it directly.

Be honest and kind. Being direct is not the same as deflating someone’s self-esteem. Absolutely provide honest feedback and do not let anything slide if it falls within the purview of what you have been asked to look at. Not pointing out something the writer actually wanted you to address is not performing your job, hinders the improvement of their work, and depending on the issue could also damage the academic discipline in question.

Feedback is about being constructive, however. Under no circumstances is it acceptable to hurt someone. There’s a huge difference between saying “Your grammar sucks” and “There are some grammatical errors in this section, and resource XYZ will be helpful for this”. In my comments to others, I strive to be encouraging. I want to be treated that way when someone peer-edits my work. When I give someone feedback, I think about how I would receive what I have written. If I feel an icy cold wind or a fiery hot one, I rephrase. When grading my students I find I get cranky if I’ve graded a series of mediocre assignments, or if I’m getting hungry or tired. With grading students, and with peer-editing, take a break as needed. It’s okay to do that.

To return to the editor-writer relationship, and from the point of view of the writer, ensure you thank your editor for their help! They have invested their time in your work, and in you. Undoubtedly you appreciate that effort. Make sure they know it. I’ve even written thank-you cards to those who have provided feedback on my university and scholarship applications.

Using my best practices for peer-editing will make the process more constructive and enjoyable for me, whether I am occupying the role of editor or writer. Yes, I also said writer. Challenge accepted in sharing my work more often with others and embracing the vulnerability that it encompasses.

*Besides having my Dad look at this post for grammar issues, I also had someone else look at this post for content and organization feedback. Thanks to them both. I appreciate their generosity.