To: Thomas Howey, Author
From: Amy Vergouwen, Peer Reviewer
Date: Sept 26, 2019
Subject: Assignment 1:3 – Peer Review of Definitions (Realized niche)
Hi Thomas! Thank you for allowing me to peer review your assignment. I really enjoyed reading it, and definitely learned a thing or two as well!
First Impressions: At first glance of your assignment I could tell that you are knowledgeable on your subject matter and that you provided me with the necessary information to understand your term thoroughly. I definitely felt as though I was given enough information to feel satisfied throughout your assignment and that you did a good job overall explaining your term.
Grammar/Sentence Structure: The main revisions I would make are not actually based upon your explanation of your term at all, but rather the grammar and sentence structure throughout the document. Be careful with the use of the terms its and it’s throughout your assignment, as well as the way you pluralize the term species. These grammatical changes will improve your sentence structure as well.
Organization/Flow: I would remove some of the semi colons used, and either try to blend the sentences, or simply use a period and create a shorter sentence in order to produce varied sentence lengths. I do feel that some of your paragraphs begin abruptly, like “for example”, and “to contrast”. I would prefer to see these paragraphs begin with a header such as “Examples of a realized niche”, and then begin your paragraph with something like “An example of a realized niche would be the red squirrel that has previously lived in Britain”. You are great at stating the necessary facts, I would just like to be able to read your assignment with a bit more flow and ease.
Examples/Visual: I appreciated your use of a visual in your assignment, as I do find that it helps me to put all of the pieces together when I am able to see what you’re are talking about. I also liked that the visual you chose also included a short description of “realized niche”. Your visual is useful because it includes descriptions directly in the visual, which is great because it is self-explanatory.
Final thoughts: Overall, I think you did a great job on the assignment. I was not familiar with this term before so I learned a lot throughout your document. I almost find myself wanting to know a bit more – I feel that you could add a bit more information possibly about the Grey Squirrel and Red Squirrel example? That was very interesting to me and I actually found myself yearning for a bit more! I hope you find my comments useful. There are really just a few minor changes with the grammar and sentence structure that I think would improve your assignment even more. Please let me know if you have any questions about my comments as I’d love to be of further help to you if I can be.
Link to Thomas’s original document: https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl301-99a-2019wa/2019/09/23/lesson-1-3-definitions-realized-niche/
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