Short Story Peer Review Sheet

Story Author: Ben

Peer Reviewer: Poom

The purpose of this workshop is to provide detailed feedback on how the author can revise his
or her story to make it better. We are not really concerned with editing for accuracy (unless you
see some really big mistakes, of course). See below for differences between revision and
editing.

ARMS=Revision (Big picture) CUPS=Editing (Mechanics & Conventions)

Add words and sentences (be descriptive, capture all ideas). Capitalization
Remove words and sentences (be concise). Usage (Are the words used correctly?)
Move words and sentences (sentence fluency, organization). Punctuation
Substitute words and sentences (word choice, voice). Spelling

Overall Review (PQP)

Directions: Write a short paragraph-length (100-200 words) review directed at the author of
the story that covers the following three areas.
1. Praise: What do you like about the story? What works well? What are some specific
examples of things that you thought were done well?
2. Question: What are some things that you did not understand in my story? Are there
questions that you have about why I wrote the story the way that I did? What are some
specific parts of my story that you felt were left unfinished or not fully explored?
3. Polish: What could I do specifically to make this a better story? What parts would you
change and how?

PQP
Praise- I praise his creativity to do these stories very effectively and using it in a very effective
ways.

Detailed Review
Write down your advice on the following questions. Point to specific examples in the piece of
writing whenever possible.
Character
1. What characters have been introduced?
2. Highlight three good examples of indirect characterization.
3. Does the author use mostly indirect characterization or does she/he rely on direct
characterization? (show, don’t tell) Explain.
4. What advice can you give the author about the characters so far?

Plot
1. What is the story about so far?
2. What seems to be the conflict of the story? What type of conflict is it?
3. What elements of the plot (exposition, rising action, climax, etc.) can you identify in the
story so far?
4. Is there anything about the plot that is confusing or doesn’t make sense?
5. What advice would you give on the plot of the story?

Style & Language Use

1. Highlight five examples of strong imagery in the story.
2. Highlight two examples of interesting figurative language used in the story.
3. Is the author using a wide range of vocabulary?
4. Highlight five words (nouns or verbs) that could be replaced with more interesting,
exciting, or specific words.
5. Overall, does the writer do a good job of showing not telling throughout the story?
Highlight any areas where this could be improved.

Theme
1. What do you think might be a possible theme of the story?
2. What advice could you give the author about developing that theme better?