One of the most interesting and important part of Unit 2 was the peer review of research proposal and designing a peer review for LinkedIn. I learned a lot about my own style of writing and how to critically assess other’s writing in the process.
For this week’s peer review, we were given the challenge of designing our own peer review template. For the review of Jongrin’s research proposal, I broke down the peer review into individual sections of his writing and commented on each section. I thought this was the most effective way to peer review a proposal as I can effectively cover all the areas and comment on all the individual sections in an organized manner. The peer review process for the research proposal was immensely helpful as the readers will often pick up on crucial details that are missing. I find that the writers generally tend to leave out details that are obvious to them but are not obvious to the readers. Jongrin and I were good partners for this review as we are both active SRC users and are familiar with each other’s situation. Jongrin was able to point out an important aspect I failed to address in my research proposal which is the flaw of using a player’s profile to assess skill level. It is definitely very difficult to accurately assess a player’s skill from just experience and this is a major flaw in my proposed solution which I will need to address. As a regular SRC user myself, I shared Jongrin’s concern with the current SRC conditions. I was able to provide Jongrin with a more complete areas of inquiry to help him strengthen his cause.
I found the LinkedIn peer review slightly more difficult to prepare as the categories for review were not as clear. However, after researching effective LinkedIn strategies, I was able to prepare a review that was suited for assessing LinkedIn profiles. One of the key suggestions for LinkedIn profiles is to include as much detail as you can, something that I noticed lacking in the description of work in Solomon’s profile. The peer review process also helped me recognize my profile’s weaknesses. As Solomon pointed out, I failed to mention my career goals in my summary which is crucial in identifying potential employers. I also realized I need to join and be more active in group in order to expand my network. The peer review and research process for LinkedIn were immeasurably helpful in improving my profile effectiveness and completeness.
Overall, I enjoyed this unit as I got to learn and think about the process behind writing a research proposal and making an effective LinkedIn profile. I enjoyed the review process as I was able to help others improve their writing as well as learn from theirs.