Peer Review in Teaching Research Paper Writing

Abstract

The paper sets out to examine the effectiveness of peer review in teaching research paper (RP) writing for non-native speakers of English in Vilnius University. Students were exposed to three types of peer review tasks, each of them involving an increasing amount of individual work. The task arrangement was based on a dependency principle. Constrained by some cultural prejudices at first, in the long run the approach turned out very effective in developing students’ skills in RP writing (identifying structural / notional parts and tracing the linguistic peculiarities of its relevant parts, working on the individual projects). In broader terms, peer review contributed to the development of students’ individual working skills and responsibility.