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C. Review on Peer-Editing
1. Definition of Peer-Editing
In teaching writing, a common activity in a process oriented curriculum is a peer-review technique, during which students read each other
drafts and make suggestions for revision. Sometimes, it is called as peer- editing or peer-correction Mangelsdorf, 1992: 274. He argues that for
beginning English students, peer-editing technique usually consists of a group of three or four students reading or listening to a peers draft and commenting
on what they find most interesting, what they want to know more about, where they are confused, and so on
—the types of response that naturally emerge from a discussion of a writers ideas. The writers then use these responses to decide
how to revise their writing. Celce-Muria 2001: 244 suggests that whenever possible, the
students‘ own writing can be used for exercise for students to do peer-editing. The students can analyze their peer‘s writing about some aspects, such as
organization of the text, vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics. Similarly, Ruso in Rivers 1996: 84 defines that in writing, the students can exchange
compositions and correct each other‘s errors, at least indicate them. Alternatively, students can discuss each other‘s work in order to arrive at the
best possible solution to a grammar or vocabulary problem. As a conclusion, peer-editing, in fact, can be the post-writing activity,
in which the students can practice to be the reader of their classmate‘s writing after they finish their drafting. During this kind of activity, the students are
supposed to analyze, criticize, and edit what comes to be inappropriate in their peer‘s writing, whether its sentence structure, organization of the text, or
content.
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2. The Strengths and Weaknesses in Using Peer-Editing
As some researchers have noted, the peer-editing has the potential to be a powerful learning activity. Mittan in Mangelsdorf 1992: 275 has written
that peer-editing achieves the strengths as follow:
a.
to provide students with an authen tic audience; increase students‘
motivation for writing,
b.
to enable students to receive different views on their writing,
c.
to help students learn to read critically their own writing,
d.
to assist students in gaining confidence in their writing, and
e.
to use oral language skills. Meanwhile, peer-editing can be conducted as a technique after the
students finish their drafting. It can be a fascinating adventure since the students can either take and give feedback or learn to be better writer and
reader. Peer-editing is believed that it is a true sharing process in writing Brown, 2001: 353. In this activity the students can check the use or
grammatical system, vocabulary, and mechanics in their writing. Furthermore, Hedge 1998: 159 believes that in the process of
writing, peer-editing has several advantages. The editing takes place immediately after the writing, which makes it meaningful and useful to the
writer. Practice in suggesting corrections in their classmates‘ work can help students to organize errors in their own. When they have to explain points to
their partner, their own understanding is redefined and clarified. It then requires them to think carefully about clarity and acceptability in writing.
Nevertheless, based os n Mangelsdorf‘s study about peer-editing
1992: 280, it is believed that according to many of the students, peer-editing or peer-review has neither helped them to be responsible for their
improvement, nor to be confident in their ability to criticize a text. The problem is that these students do not think that they, or their peers, could be
good critics. He p. 283 also adds that peer-editing takes patience —from both
students and teachers. It is natural that students are skeptical about relying on
each other for advice, when eventually they will be graded by the teacher. It
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also happens that the first one or two times the students complete peer-editing, their responses to each other might be partly inadequate.
Finally, it can be summed up that peer-editing which is implemented as one of the post-writing activities has either strengths or weaknesses as
follow: Peer-Editing
The Strengths The Weaknesses
- helps the students learn to read
critically; -
helps the students to organize
errors in their writing; -
increases their motivation and
confidence in their writing; -
emerges the students to think
carefully about the clarity and the acceptability in writing.
- Not all students think that they
could be good critics. -
Both the students and the teacher need patience.
D. Teaching Writing by Using Mind Mapping and Peer-Editing
