The problem with peer critiquing or revising in general is what constitutes good or bad revision I think. There is most definitely a difference between the two. For example, in my undergrad studies I had a professor who would let us revise any one paper that we wrote throughout the semester. We get one revision and one only. If you turn in a paper that has little or negligible revision, she retained the right to fail your paper no matter the grade. If you turned in a revision and it actually lowered your grade, you had to stick with it.
While being a very harsh way to deal with revision, it really made the person think about what they were doing when trying to up a B to an A or a C to a B. She rarely, at least in my experience with talking to her about the policy, got back revisions that were frivolous or non-existent and in the process was probably creating better writers. I think when determining how students should revise and peer critique we have to consider telling them that there is such a thing as bad revision. Some students can catch other students' bad revisions and help them, but a lot of the time it takes the guiding hand of an experienced writer to help them see where and why they need to revise.
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