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Reader’s Name______________________
Peer Review Worksheet: English 101
Writers: Post your essay as a Microsoft Word document—the file name should have your name,
essay name (Essay 3), and a file extension of .doc or .docx, which means a Microsoft Word
document.
Readers: Download two students’ papers and THIS document. Be sure to read through the entire
essay-and THIS peer review workshop sheet-before you begin the critique. Answer the following
questions as thoroughly as possible based on your reading of the essay. Type your critique
(answers to the questions below) into this document. Make sure to give the writer as much
honest feedback as you can; remember that your response may make the difference between a
weak paper and a strong one.
Next, click reply to the writers’ posts and upload THIS completed document for the writers to
review during their revisions. REMEMBER, YOU WILL NEED TO REVIEW TWO
DIFFERENT ESSAYS.
1. Write the thesis here:
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2. Is the thesis direct? Does it appear at the end of the first paragraph?
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3. Does the thesis effectively answer the question in the prompt? How could the writer improve
thesis focus, if necessary?
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4. Do you get a clear sense what the paragraphs are about through the topic sentences? Write the
strongest topic sentence here and state why you think it is strong.
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5. Write the weakest topic sentence here and state why you think it is weak.
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6. Regarding the MLA, check the parenthetical citations in the text and the “Works Cited” page.
Do these conform to the MLA’s exact specifications? Can you mark the paper accordingly?
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7. Does the conclusion provide closure, restate the thesis, and summarize the paper? How could
the writer make it more effective?
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8. Finally, write any suggestions you may have to strengthen the paper that was not covered
above.
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Analisa Huizar
27 April 2018
Professor Wilson
In reading blink; the human ability to make quick decisions with very little information is
an amazing talent, as shown through Malcolm Gladwell's book “Blink: The Power of Thinking
Without Thinking.” This ability to thoughtlessly find patterns in situations and behavior based on
very narrow slices of experiences is known as "thin-slicing," and it's helpful properties are often
overlooked in the world today. Gladwell argues that in many ways, snap judgments may be as
accurate as/or even better; thoroughly calculated decisions by utilizing the story and rhetorical
questions.
Gladwell not only manages to keep his audience’s attention, but also effectively
demonstrates that thin-slicing can be very useful in determining something that would otherwise
require an enormous amount of time. In one of the chapters, the author gives us a story of a time
when a young couple came to the University of Washington where their actions were thoroughly
recorded. A psychologist named John Gottman was determining whether the couple would still
be together after fifteen years by analyzing their argument over their dog. Astoundingly,
Gottman managed to predict the result with a jaw-breaking 90 percent accuracy, a no small feat
considering that he did not use any other information than a fifteen minute videotape of the
couple. This shows that in order to determine something as important as marriage, people do not
need years worth of dull data, but several signs that jump right at them at a glance. Gladwell is
also able to deliver his message of human snap judgment in a more interesting manner than to
explain his ideas without an example to connect to.
Gladwell's book periodically contains rhetorical questions to interact with the readers and
to transition from the story to the author's analysis of thin-slicing. After the real dialogue of the
couple, Gladwell throws in two questions: "How much do you think can be learned about Sue
and Bill's marriage by watching that fifteen minute videotape? Can we tell if their relationship is
healthy or unhealthy?" Sure, these questions might not have direct answers, but do allow the
readers to stop and think whether or not if thin-slicing is sufficient enough for the job. With this
in mind, the readers are able to go directly into the author's take of the issue and his analysis of
Gottman's "love lab" without any additional transitions. While these rhetorical devices might not
directly show that snap judgments might be as accurate as or even better than thoroughly
calculated decisions, they work as little checkpoints for the readers and urge them to read further.
Utilizing the story and rhetorical questions, Malcolm Gladwell effectively argues that
thin-slicing can be just as useful as or even better than a time-consuming judgment. Gladwell's
view on this relatively unknown ability makes the readers think twice about the whole nature of
decision making.
While reading on, I was frequently irritated by Gladwell’s failure to make important
distinctions—it seems he was always comparing “apples with oranges.” For example, he says he
is disturbed with how much more likely blacks are to be arrested and convicted of crimes than
whites are. He says, “I’m not talking here about racial differences in overall crime rates. What
I’m talking about is this: if, for example, a white man and a black man are charged with identical
drug-related crimes, the black man is far more likely…to go to jail.” But the statistics he cites in
support of his thesis are nothing but the differences in rates of incarceration in the public at large,
not among those charged with the same crimes! So the reader is left with no way of judging how
much of the difference comes from greater use of drugs among blacks (if any), and how much
from the difference in treatment in the courts.
Gladwell then concludes with a suggestion that something should be done in the legal
system to reduce or eliminate racial prejudice, obviously a laudatory goal. His proposed method
is to prevent jurors from seeing the race of the witnesses. However, in an earlier chapter, he
demonstrated how important it was to view subtle changes is facial expression to determine
whether a speaker was telling the truth or lying! Perhaps Gladwell values the elimination of
racial prejudice above assessing the truthfulness of witnesses. Or perhaps he just forgot what he
had written in the previous chapter.