- Review, don't grade -- Your goal when reviewing a report is to provide written feedback that is constructive, not to produce a grade for the report. Your first paragraph may provide some overall assessment ("This report lacks several of the key aspects requested in the assignment" or "This is an exemplary report that really made me rethink how I should have done mine"), but you should not produce a numerical score or grade.
- Be constructive -- Whenever you point out a problem, try to make at least one concrete suggestion about how to fix it. One of the most common errors in reviewing is to note problems without noting how to fix them. Being constructive is more useful to authors and forces you, as a reviewer, to think about the difficulty of fixing the problems you identify.
- Re-read the assignment -- Your review should be influenced by how well the author addressed the assignment. Re-reading the assignment will help you recall the specifics.
- Read related work, if necessary -- For later reports, you may need to review earlier reports from the same author to get necessary perspective on the report you are reading.
- Write four to five paragraphs -- As with the response papers, your review should consist of one paragraph that briefly summarizes the report and three to four other paragraphs, each of which makes a key point about the report.
- Focus on major issues -- Focus on major issues such as claims, evidence, problem formulation, and report organization. If you find a many errors in grammar, spelling, citation, etc., then you may want to note that as one of your comments. However, don't focus on them, and don't let them sidetrack you from the real issue (the quality of the research and overall presentation). If grammar and usage interfere greatly with the presentation, note this as a major issue, and try to separate it from the rest of your review.
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