SQR 2

Joshua Hernandez

ENG 1301

Trang Phan

9/12/10

Gloria Neubert and Sally McNelis’ “Teaching Specific Revision Suggestions”is about the PQP method of students revising fellow students writing pieces. What PQP stands for is Praise, Question, and Polish. What you do with this method is: you read a student’s piece and praise it by telling the author what you is good about the writing and what should not be changed, then you question and tell the author what you did not understand about the piece, finally you polish by giving the author suggestions for improving the piece.

Gloria Neubert and Sally McNelis have found that students comments fall into one of three categories. Which are Vague, General but Useful, and Specific. Vague comments are comments that give little or no specific direction for improving your piece. General, but Useful comments are still general but they give you some sense of direction. Specific comments provide the writer with precise direction in revising their piece. Gloria Neubert and Sally McNelis’ PQP is method very useful to students and should be practiced in all levels of education.

Gloria A. Neubert and Sally J. McNelis. Peer Response: Teaching Specific Revision Suggestions. The English Journal, Vol. 79, No. 5 (Sep., 1990), pp. 52-56

Question: Neubert and McNelis categorized students’ comments into 3 types: Vague, General but Useful, and Specific. What are the characteristics of each type of comments? Why is it important for comments to be specific?

Response: Vague comments are comments that’s are very simple and aren’t specific what so ever. They give very little or no direction for revising your piece. An example of a vague comment is: “Try to revise the entire second page,” or “I liked this piece.”

General, but useful comments are also general but provide you with direction for revision. An example of a General comment would be: Describe Anna better.”

Specific comments provide the writer specific direction for revision. An example of a specific comment would be: “I still can’t get a picture of Anna. What kind of clothes does she wear, and what do her hair and face look like?”

It is important for comments to be specific so that when you are revising your essay you have a general knowledge of what to write and revise. It is not very useful when you get a vague comment because you don’t know what to revise.