Peer Review Writing Workshop of Essay 2: Directions and Checklist

These postings are worth four points each. Directions for Peer Review Writing Workshop of Essay 2 Important information for your peer review. Check each item listed to make sure you have completed each review.

Review two classmates' papers using the following peer review directions. Start by choosing a classmate who has not yet received a peer review to make sure everyone is included. Post each peer review as a separate reply to each classmate. At the top, identify yourself as the peer reviewer and your classmate as the writer of the essay. Use numbered headings to organize each review: for example,

1) Introduction Answer the following questions in complete and detailed sentences. Write a paragraph of five to eight sentences for each section. Use at least five readings assigned this semester to help support your points. Include title of a reading, page numbers, and details from the reading. Include readings from the class textbooks and readings from online handouts under Readings and Resources. Suggest improvements. Do NOT copy other students' peer reviews. Doing so is plagiarism. See the syllabus regarding plagiarism and the consequences. Do NOT just reword questions. Provide details and suggestions that are particular to each classmate's writing.

Introduction How effective is the first sentence of the essay as a hook for the reader’s attention? Is the introductory paragraph six to eight sentences? What could be added to it? Are the author and title of the essay identified correctly? (Author—first name and last name on first reference; spelled correctly? Title of essay—capitalized correctly, placed inside of quotation marks?) Has publication information been included? Has your classmate considered the intended audience of the source essay? How well does the introduction lead to the thesis?

2) Thesis Include classmate's thesis. Is it easily identifiable? Is it the last sentence of the first paragraph? Is the thesis a one-sentence assertion that clearly reflects the assignment prompt? The thesis should not be a question, a list, or an announcement. The thesis of a critique should NOT state whether the writer agrees or disagrees with the source essay. Instead it should assert how well the author achieves his or her purpose, and explain why.

3) Summary Paragraph Is the first body paragraph an effective summary of the source essay? How and why? Does the topic sentence of this summary paragraph state the thesis of the source essay? What is the thesis of the source essay? What, if any, important points about the source essay does this summary paragraph leave out? Is this summary too short or too long?

Summary Paragraph

4) Assessment Paragraph Has the writer identified the purpose of the source essay? Do you agree or disagree? Why? Has the writer evaluated how well the source essay realizes its purpose? How can this evaluation be improved? How well has the writer identified what assumptions are being made in the source essay?

5) Response Paragraph Does the writer make it clear whether he or she agrees or disagrees with the source essay? Does the writer offer reasons for that agreement or disagreement? Has the writer made effective use of at least two outside sources in his or her critique?

6) Conclusion Does the first sentence avoid unnecessary phrases such as “In conclusion” or “To sum it all up”? Are the full name of the author and full title of the source essay given again? Is the conclusion at least four sentences long? Does the conclusion remind readers of the main point or points?

7) Evidence and MLA Documentation Does every quotation include a signal phrase and correct MLA in-text citation? Is there a correct MLA-style Works Cited page? Do the assessment paragraph and the response paragraph include two partial quotations and one paraphrase from the source essay being critiqued? Are the two additional sources included as evidence in support of your classmate's critique? Does the essay include three-to-five partial quotations from these additional sources.

8) Academic Writing Does this essay follow requirements for academic writing. Explain using details from academic writing handouts.

9) Clarity Provide specific comments on improving clarity based on this reading.

10) Proofreading Note any sentence-level errors.

11) Strengths Discuss the strengths of your classmate's essay. CLASSMATE 1 POST The American workforce critique Work rest and leisure is an argument that will be debated by humanity without a conclusion on what is best for the worker. Jill Lepore, analyzes the concept in the essay,

"What's Wrong with the Way We Work." In her essay, she suggests that Americans give their all in their labor and undertake their job passionately but it does not give them enough. She looks at the age-long debate that has captured the attention of many Industrialists throughout the years, shifting with government powers and human interventions. It starts with a look at the life of Maria Fernandez of a Portuguese Migrant origin and then analyzes the turns that the debate has taken to conclude on the inhuman nature of employment (Lepore). In an analysis of the essay, she points out harsh treatment of the motion of favorable working hours to defend the senselessness of excessive working with proofs from history.

Assessment Paragraph

The Essay on working hours and the return from it has been sufficiently argued by Jill Lepore in her essay and achieves its purpose as well backup evidence. America will reach a point when the pace of productivity will no longer be feasible and machines will have to inevitably take over. Lepore makes several assertive observations throughout history that prove the wickedness that working has exposed individuals to. She starts by suggesting that Americans work for a longer time than the French, German, or other peer counterparts despite the decline of real wage in America.

Individuals should spend less time than the other primates due to new technologies, techniques, and innovations. The achievements Americans have made are not more than the white man despite their unceasing labor. History has seen people strain in offering labor without a predictable change in the normality’s of life (Lepore). The labor industry achieved significant gains in the 19th Century and there were significant gains during the period. It is a foolish idea to find a purpose in doing a job to love doing the job. Labor unions have warred for years against unfair labor laws and practices but their efforts bore no fruits.

She suggests that by 2001, Donkin's suggests, "Blood, Sweat, and Tears," the labor pages had gone, "because labor, as we knew it," he writes, "no longer exists” (Lepore). The battle went to the Industrial era war between work and home duties, with feminists arguing that they are overburdened by their roles. Labor unions sought bargaining power but their American work was not lightened. Americans have worked hard over the years but they have no wealth to show for it. She concludes that the Chief executive has plundered so much money with the labor unions failing to achieve their roles.

The essay has effectively achieved its purpose through a systematic analysis of the working hours debate. The author, Lepore starts the essay with the case introduction by introducing the death of Maria Fernandes. She systematically evolves the concept of work and timing from the major argument recently existing before embarking on the historical development of the debate. She looks at how the concept has been debated while looking at the strengths and weaknesses of the debaters throughout history. She critically analyzes the failures of the efforts to evolve meaningful working policies and the resulting consequences of failing to tackle the issue (Lepore).

Response Paragraph

She accomplishes her purpose by fully integrating the historical actions in America with her argument to develop her thesis conclusively. Her purpose was to portray the evil that looms in the overworking of employees but she certainly achieves it. She manages to expose the evil by showing the undesired results that have been obtained after the efforts of increasing the average working time throughout history. Lepore is right in her judgment of work and its perception in America. The Americans have evolved through the ages with high cases of employee mistreatment to make wealth for the business owners while endangering the employees. The intervention into the issue throughout history has failed due to the inability of the Federal government taking stern actions against the evils committed in the industries and supporting labor unions. Article by Colvin, Alexander JS, and Owen Darbishire is used to support this claim.

Colvin is an associate member of Cornell Law Faculty while Owen Darbishire is a professor in management studies. The authors’ article used "Convergence in industrial relations institutions: The emerging Anglo-American model?” is about reasons for convergence in industrial relations institutions. The authors argue that “The battle against unfair labor laws has been fought since American Independence and it was not supposed to be a debate in the 21st Century” (Colvin and Darbishire 1021). The analysis of the debate taking turns throughout history in her essay shows that Lepore was able to see the failure in efforts of mitigating unfair labor practices. She suggests several cases of unfair labor practices in history, "From about 1980, in the United States, the G.D.P. kept growing, even as real wages stagnated” (Lepore).

The growth in the wealth of the Americans and the advancement they have made in history is not much compared to the labor that has been invested in it. The legislation failures in addressing the labor problems clearly show the failure of America also shows clearly, the failure in providing legitimate solutions to labor problems. Dau-Schmidt article entitled “Promoting Employee Voice in the American Economy: A Call for Comprehensive Reform” is used to support this claim.

Dau-Schmidt, Kenneth is a recognized scholar and teacher in labor and employment law, his article is about reforms in employment. Dau-Schmidt suggests that “The battle of labor cases has not been well-tackled in the legislature and thus has created an age-long debate” that Law and legislation could have acted as a final blow to the debate but its failure has been seen through the years (Dau-Schmidt 765). Elizabeth Warren brought the motion in the Legislature, only to see it never reaching the voting stage, Lepore says that “the bill never had any chance of passing. It was reintroduced again in 2017 and 2019” (Lepore). The issue of labor has been treated as an economic or socio-cultural issue, despite the cases that sprout out like the death of Maria Fernandes.

Conclusion

“The United States has become disconnected from the history of its own making” (Lepore). The injustices in labor have therefore been left in the hands of economists and Industrialists who have manipulated them for their benefit. It is visible that the war has not been justly fought leading to inadequacies like the death of Maria Fernandes. The Essay on working hours and the return from it has been sufficiently argued by Jill Lepore in her essay “What is wrong with the Way We Work.” She effectively justifies her thesis of a poor approach that has been given to work and pay in terms of working hours by looking at the development of the concept throughout history. I stand in agreement with her argument of the failure of America to see that their labor activities have failed in achieving their intended purpose of growing their wealth.

She conducts a study that proves that the argument has been wrongly debated throughout history by looking at how the outcomes of the actions taken throughout history have been insufficient. History of the labor argument has shown the efforts of the Americans in making wealth being thwarted and their labor going in vain. Jill Lepore is therefore right in her argument and articulation of her points to support her motion. Works Cited Colvin, Alexander JS, and Owen Darbishire. "Convergence in industrial relations institutions: The emerging Anglo-American model?."

Americans once worked to support their families but now work to work. Even if an individual enjoys their work it is still work because of the demand for output and productivity. An artists love to create is still but on a time table to produce the final product just the same as a mason worker while working on the job site. There is a lack of relaxation when you are doing what you love to make money.

The commitment an individual must have to their job is equal to that they must have to their family. The way Americans think of what working is has changed over the decades. It used to be that work was a task of requirement you needed to do to live like farming or a assembly line worker. These jobs when the job was done you were done and you moved on to the next task. Nowadays there is just the constant commitment to work that never ends.

It is expected that workers must commit as much to their jobs as they do to their home lives. It is often said that is one loves what they do it I not considered work. That is a lie, work is work and you have to do it to make enough money to live. There is the unspoken assumption that all Americans want a better job. However many Americans are content with their jobs and don’t seek to improve or in instances even work at all. Not all people think that they should even try to get a new job but would rather complain that they don’t like their jobs. It appears that Lepore has a firm understanding on the development of they way Americans have worked and continue to work. Lepore starts with the revolutionary war and how individuals worked.

They went to work and then went home leaving all the worries of work behind them. This has changed in present day where people are constantly fretting over what they need to accomplish. The work does not seem to ever end. In the case of a young woman who died while waiting to work she just accepted that she was always going to work. She had three part time jobs and Lepore used this girls mind set to perfectly describe how Americans work, one must constantly work to get anywhere in life.

Work is often a monotonous part of everyone’s life. A job where for the most part you never get out of and preform the same task everyday with no change. If one is lucky enough to enjoy their job there is always the chance that doing what they love becomes a chore because that’s what they have to do rather than do for enjoyment. People often plod through life just blindly accepting that they must work to live but have no real plan to better their lives.