Mss141: Guidelines for Commenting Paper Drafts

for Monday March 3: please bring your commented papers to class.  

1.  While you read the paper, please provide as much constructive feedback as possible.  Ask yourself, what works well in this paper already and why?

• is it easy to understand? interesting? does it flow from point to point?  Are there particular sentences or observations that really stand out?  Is the argument convincing?

2.  Can you locate the paper's thesis statement?  If not, do you have ideas about what the argument could be?

3.  Note any questions you have about the paper, especially if there are points that you do not follow.

4.  Make suggestions for improvement: these may be general or specific, dealing with content, style and organization.  

5.  The goal is for your comments to help the author write a stronger second draft.  Please be courteous and professional in all written and spoken comments.