To: Alicia DeGelder
From: Dakota Tryhuba
Date: 22 January 2019
Subject: Peer review of your definition of the term “bacteriophage”
I have reviewed the draft of your definitions of the term “bacteriophage”, and I want to thank you for taking the time to explain this complex term from your field of study as I was not previously familiar with this term. Being unfamiliar with this term, I was able to easily place myself in the shoes of the target non-technical audience and provide you with some objective critical feedback. Overall, your definitions were well composed and contained no grammatical errors. However, I do have a few suggestions that I believe will help improve the overall quality of your definitions, particularly your sentence and expanded definitions.
Parenthetical Definition: Your parenthetical definition is clear and to the point. I was able to quickly learn what the term means.
Sentence Definition: Your sentence definition is again clear and to the point. Well written. However, this definition is shorter than the parenthetical one and contains less information, whereas the textbook suggests the opposite.
Expanded definition: Your expanded definition was well written with no grammatical errors, however, there are some improvements that could be made. First, I noticed that you did not incorporate at least four expansion strategies as per our instructions, and as such your expanded definition could be improved by expanding on parts of your definition. The best way to achieve this is by categorizing your definition into sections to avoid confusing the reader (think of it like an essay). For example, your definition begins by explaining the history of the virus but then jumps to a comparison of the number of bacteriophages on the planet to blue whales. While this is an interesting comparison, especially for a layperson, I feel that it is awkwardly placed in your definition which immediately follows your discussion on the virus’s history. Try dividing it into subsections such as this:
What is a Bacteriophage? > History > How it Works > And perhaps add a section on the different uses?
My suggestion would be to first explain the basic definition of the term rather than to start with its history (remember that although we had to write parenthetical and sentence definitions as well, these definitions are distinct from the expanded definition). I did like your incorporation of the etymology into your expanded definition and think that would incorporate well into your introduction of the term. So for the introduction of your expanded definition, I would use a format such as basic definition > etymology > composition > fun analogy on blue whales.
To close, the definitions were very well written overall. I hope my recommendations are helpful for improving your second draft. None of the sentences wore wordy or hard to follow, and there were no grammatical errors. The main thing to focus on is is your expanded definition which deviated from the expanded definitions strategies offered by the textbook.
Well done!
Leave a Reply