Here is a summary of the instructions for the course that were discussed
at our first meeting:
- This semester the course will work on a two-week cycle. One week there
will be a writing assignment and the next week will be dedicated to
giving feedback to a text you receive from a peer. All transactions
take place this semester via e-mail.
- The language used for all exchanges is English.
Not only your texts but also e-mails and notes to the writers and me
should be in English. That way you will get writing practice in both
academic style writing (in your texts) and informal style writing (in
your feedback and e-mails). This is also helpful to the readers so please
stick to English at all times.
- After writing your assignment, save it with the week number
+ a shortened form of the name of the assignment + your name.
- In the following week - Feedback Week - go to the PCS
homepage and request a peer editor to send your text to.
Request ONLY ONE per assignment!
If you request more than one peer, one of those peers will not get a
text for the week! If you forget the name and e-mail address of your
peer for the week, you can find it under the link
"My List of Peers" on the PCS homepage.
- At the beginning of the Feedback Week, you should also be receiving
a text from a different student who will be asking you to correct their
text. If you do not receive a text from another student, check your
list of peers to see if someone has gotten you as their peer. If there
is a name on your list for that week and you did not receive a text
from the person, it might be helpful write and ask if there is a problem.
E-mail is not always as dependable as we would like, especially if English
attachments are included. Sometimes they get put into the spam or the
account is too full. So asking is always a good idea.
- Peer feedback in this course is mainly intended to give the writer
your impressions of their text and whether you noticed any major language
problems you can help them with. The main idea of this feedback is not
to find all the grammar mistakes you can. Let the person know in a friendly
way how they have managed to convey to you, the reader, what they wanted
to say. And, naturally, if there are any questions or if you think you
need a second opinion, I
will be glad to help out. My e-mail address is: caroline.coit@uni-koeln.de.
Be sure to include online writing course (owc)
and your university (for example: owc köln, owc kisd) in
the topic of the e-mail, please. That way I will answer as fast as possible.
- Also be sure to keep all of your written materials together in a portfolio
(folder) so that at the end of the semester we can get together to discuss
your progress and experiences you made throughout the semester. In order
to get a Schein/credit for the course you will need to present
your portfolio consisting of your corrected work, your final draft,
and the texts you corrected with all your corrections and comments on
them.
- For anyone who missed the first meeting and introduction to the course,
here is a brief description of the objectives
of the course and some information about peer
editing and the editing tool that
I explained at the meeting.
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Week 1 - Narrative Event (starting April 12)