“Responding, Really Responding, to Other Student’s Writing”

I have always been really, really, really bad at proofreading other people’s work. For instance, I remember in highschool we used to have to fill out sheets about the other student’s essay, and I would try to get it done as fast as possible and give really bad, irrelevant comments about what needs to be fixed. This wasn’t a problem because every other student was doing the same thing, so proofreading was pointless for us. Since then, I have never proofread, truly proofread, my writing because I did not know how to actually fix mistakes. After reading, “Responding, Really Responding to Other Student’s Writing” by Richard Straub, I have a good sense of what I should actually be looking for in other student’s papers. When proofreading you have to take into account all the factors of the paper from the purpose to the stage of drafting, and do not be the “nice” grader. When grading and looking through the paper fix all the flaws and help the person’s writing be better. You would not let a close friend go around with something in her teeth, you would tell her, so tell someone when there is a piece of writing that needs to be fixed. I prefer seeing comments in the margins of my paper so I can see exactly what the reader is talking about, whereas with notes on a sheet or at the end of a paper errors can be forgotten and miscommunicated. 

01/20/2020