Peer review

600-word peer review for a "literature review" attached below

Follow these guidelines while writing the peer review.

The review has 3 parts . please write responsibily accourding to the instruction by due time.

Respond to each part using the following questions as your guide.  Write the review as a letter to the group, developing as many paragraphs as you feel you need.  If you want to offer some parts of your letter in list form that’s fine, but if so, weave those into your paragraphs where you use full sentences:

            Part I:  Context of the Topic/Problem (or Background to X—the problem is named here)

            Lit reviews typically begin with some history of how the problem has been framed and

            investigated.  Since this review will be read by an audience from at least two different

            disciplines, this section will need to appeal to readers across both fields.  Does it do

            that? Insider knowledge, terminology, and assumptions need to be minimal.  Does the

            history provided seem professional and learned, in other words, but still clear to those

            who may not have special knowledge? Is there enough information?  or too much? 

            Does it keep your attention, get to essential questions and problems, and show overall

            how each discipline approaches this problem?

            Part II: Discussion of Select Research

            In this section, the body of the lit review, the writers need to discuss a limited number

of published research on the problem from the perspectives of two disciplines.  How that organization is determined is up to the writers, but the result should ideally read smoothly and clearly.  The logic of the organization should become apparent and convincing.  The organizational pattern might be chronology, components of each discipline’s perspective, researchers of the problem, or something else.

            Is the organization pattern sensible and clear to you?  Does it bring the problem to light,

            teach you how various experts have approached it, and show developments in thinking

            about the problem across time, disciplines, and perhaps cultures?  Do you want more

            in any one area or overall? 

            Does the lit review address key questions, such as:

            --how are disciplinary perspectives on the problem similar and/or different?

            --how do the sources frame the problem?  what key questions do the sources address?

            --is there commonality in the problem framing within each discipline that reveals           disciplinary thinking? Is there work done here comparing/contrasting this thinking

            across the two disciplines?

            --how does the language of the two disciplines vary? 

Turn back to the lit review of Casanave from earlier in the course for models of how lit reviews introduce this or that article.  For example, Casanave uses phrases such as, “in an early piece by . . .  , the message was that . . . “ or “however, the findings have as yet had little impact on . . . “ or “in a related, but somewhat different approach,  . . . “  This

typical lit review language will grow naturally from what the writers need to say, but

as a reviewer you can assist the writers by looking for these summary and introductory phrases.

Part III: Conclusion (or another name you prefer)

            This section of the lit review synthesizes what has been covered and suggests possible

or likely directions for the research. The writers should NOT offer solutions to the problem (that’s Project 3); rather, the writers might point to areas of need in the research, or directions for the research to investigate further.  This section involves analysis of how each discipline approaches the problem and what these approaches say about each disciplines’ conventions for writing and thinking.  Here the writers have freedom to interpret, propose, criticize, and predict.  The tone here must remain balanced, reasonable, fair, and responsible, but the writers may offer strong responses. Respond as a reviewer to these possible ways the writers are synthesizing the published literature.  Are you seeing critical thinking?  Are they holding to the standards of professional, fair critique?  Note what you find working well and, perhaps, less well. Suggest any ways to improve in terms of clarity, thoroughness, or conciseness.

Comment on this draft’s readability so far:  is the writer using sections and headings?  Are you confused anywhere?  What might make the text’s design sharper, more inviting, and readable?