Peer Review Essay Two

You will be receiving your peers' essays on Sunday night!!! Please spend 30-45 minutes reading each essay. Please print out the following set of questions so that you can use them as a guide while you are reading. Please email your responses to each of the questions to your peers by Tuesday November 14th at 9:00pm.

In addition to the email with comments about the essay, I am also asking you to read through the essay using the "track changes" option so that you can make language/sentence-level comments. If you prefer to print out the essays and make comments on the hard copy, this is also fine. Please organize this with your group. Everyone, however, will send and receive 2 emails with their response to the set of questions below. Please print out the emailed peer responses (and the essays with "track change" comments or hand-written comments) and bring them to class on Wednesday.

First, read the essay through. Use "track changes" on word to make notes/comments as you read. This will make all of your comments appear in red. Or make hand-written comments. Mark things that are interesting, confusing, that you want to know more about, etc.

Then, read and respond to the following questions in an email. You can number the questions or format it however you like (as long as your peer will understand). These questions are also valuable to you as writers.

1. What is your peer's idea of the significance of God for Descartes? Can you sum it up in a short phrase? What is the concept from Descartes that the writer is focusing on?

2. Locate the first passage included from Descartes. Is it clear what this passage is presenting evidence of? If yes, why? If no, why not?

3. Look at the interpretation that follows this passage. This is also called "the warrant" (the reason why the passage (the evidence) supports the claim. At first glance, where does it seem that the writer is summarizing and where analyzing? Make some comments here on the effectiveness of both.

4. In his/her analysis, does the writer deal with all of the parts of the passage that you think are important? Are there terms/phrases that the writer needs to look more closely at and give more interpretation of?

5. Following this passage interpretation, what phrases signal to you that the writer is drawing conclusions from this passage that are developing his/her argument?

6. Has the writer sucessfully pointed out something "new" about the Descartes passage and also related it to his/her idea about Descartes' G? If no, is there anything you would suggest that they look at in the passage that might be compelling?

7. Look at the passages that are included in the rest of the paper. Does it seem they are interpreted similarly to the one above? Which of these passages is the writer's strongest interpretation? the weakest? Comment on the overall effectiveness of the writer's interpretation practice. Make some suggestions for improvement.

8. Are there some passages or places in The Meditations you think the writer should look at? Places that would complexitize and/or develop their ideas about the significance of G? Are the passages included adequate/appropriate to the writer's "focus," his/her thesis, his/her "idea" of G?

9. Does the essay offer a coherent interpretation of a certain "idea" of God for Descartes? Comment briefly on the organization of the essay. Does it develop the idea of the thesis/introduction?

10. The conclusion of this essay should not summarize, but should be your "last best point," or you might re-visit some of the points made before and develop/draw out their central importance to your idea. Does the conclusion include the description of "certain results" that the writer has arrived at? If yes, what new thing has the writer told you about his/her idea in the conclusion? Is this an extension of the thesis (rather than either a brand new thesis or a reiteration of the old one)? If no, what suggestions do you have for change?

11. What have you learned, as a peer reader, from this essay (either negatively or positively)?