I grew increasingly frustrated with my choice of term, vitrification, the more I researched it. The term is involved in several fields of study with a minor tweak in its meaning in each of these fields. In this way, it challenged me to define the term broadly to firstly encompass all of these fields, and secondly to narrow down the expanded definition to ensure the reader was clear about the process as it pertained to each specific field.
From the peer-review, I discovered that in an attempts to “play it safe” with a vague target audience, I ultimately confused my reader. Similarly, while I enjoy creatively writing, I must work to know when specific, organized, clear and concise writing is essential as opposed to creative writing with use of metaphoric or allegoric writing–which was the case of this assignment.
From performing a peer-review of another’s work, I exercised my ability to take a step out of my viewpoint, and step into the viewpoint of the author’s target audience and to analyze the piece from there. This is a great task to practice as it not only picks up on one’s own critiques but can more openly pick up on a broader range of suggestions and questions for the author which ultimately accelerates the process of critiquing and editing. This process gave me an idea of the work and in-depth, thoughtful communication that must be put forward to thoroughly critique a piece of literature. Additionally, a lot of critique is purely subjective and I see the value in having multiple individuals and viewpoints collaborate to effectively edit one piece.
Enclosed:
Peer-review of Definition Assignment by Andriy Bolyachevets
http://engl301.arts.ubc.ca/2016/09/28/peer-review-report-of-assignment-1-3-definitions/
Rewritten version of Definitions Assignment by Siarra Sens
http://engl301.arts.ubc.ca/2016/10/02/13-edited-definitions-assignment/