Buddhika Ratnasiri

Professor Freeman

College Writing 161

16 March 2019

Peer Review for Draft of Literature Review

1. Cut and paste this worksheet into a separate document.
2. Come up with two or three questions you would like guidance on from your group and from
me. Write them here:
So far in my literature review, I have touched on the major disparities and risk factors that
influence rates of cardiovascular disease. Other than expanding and including more evidence,
should I make the literature review more well-rounded by including a section on prevention
measures to help reduce the risk, or would that be going off topic?
Should the final literature review submission include an abstract now that we have written the
first draft and understand most of the issue we are writing about?

3. Share your literature review with your writers' group (so you'll read three reviews and get
feedback from three people.
4. Read through the essays shared with you.
5. Write up your answers to the following questions, as well as make comments in the margins if
you feel you want to--also, authors, please feel free to ask your reviewers if there are other
questions you'd like addressed:
Angela:

 The writer's questions--if their questions repeat any of those I've asked below, just say "see
above."
o Is the argument made in my literature review clear and apparent?
 To me, the argument made was clear, as the writer sought to address
whether “the socioeconomic status of a family correlates with
developmental outcomes of that family’s children” (Tang-Tan).
Furthermore, the writer supported her argument well with evidence and
statistics from primary research article to add credibility to the literature
review.
o Does the use of tables and figures integrate well with the text? Should I aim to
include more?
 I think the use of figures integrate well with the text because they provide
a sort of ‘eye candy’ that eases the reader off the dense text contained in
the literature review. Furthermore, the tables/figures show certain trends in
 the data that are better seen in graphs and data than explained through
words.
 How well does the paper fit the genre of a literature review, i.e. in terms of "thesis" and
approach? Is it clear why a review is needed at this time?
o The paper fits the genre of a literature review in that a thesis is clearly stated and
the writer structures her paper into clearly defined sections including the
Introduction, Main Analysis, and Conclusion. The writer elaborates on the need
for a review at this time by stating that there is currently a lack of consensus
whether a correlation exists between socioeconomic status and child development.
The writer thus seeks to address whether “the socioeconomic status of a family
correlates with developmental outcomes of that family’s children” (Tang-Tan).
 What specific expert audience does the author target? How effectively (i.e. tone, selection,
diction) does the author target that audience?
o The author seems to best target the audience of psychologists specializing the
field of child development because the paper draws on numerous primary
research articles that have analyzed the trends between socioeconomic status and
child development. The author uses terminology that lies within the child
developmental field of psychology such as ‘mental inhibitory control’ and
describes was of assessing child development that may be common to specialists
in the field such as visual-spatial processing, reasoning, memory, language and
social and emotional development. The tone of the author is informative while
there is a little persuasiveness in summarizing the main points of the primary
research articles to demonstrate a relationship between socioeconomic status and
child development.
 How well are sources synthesized and assessed? What are the key sections? What are the
patterns or trends the author notes?
o The sources are clearly references throughout the paper and come up often in the
main analysis section of the paper. The key sections in this paper are the
Introduction, the Main Analysis and the Conclusion. The Introduction introduces
the impact of socioeconomic status on child development as an area that still does
not have definitive conclusions and thus requires research to determine whether or
not an association exists. The Main Analysis section of the paper summarizes
main points made by primary research articles references and includes a graph
which depicts the development gap between children from the upper and lower
wealth quintiles.
 How thoroughly does the author call for subsequent research?
o The writer clearly states the need for more research to be done due to the
unsolved questions that remain in this field. For example, the writer stresses the
importance of examining causality and cites a paper which states that causality
can better be examined in this field by looking at a “child’s developmental
outcomes before and after a new law has been implemented” (Tang-Tan). The
writer also points to the fact that much of the research is not generalized and may
not be representative of the general population, consisting of mostly white and
middle class samples. Therefore, the writer calls for more research to be done in
order to better examine causality which can be representative of the general
population.
 What are the strengths of this draft and what most needs to be worked on?
o The draft has a very clear structure that makes it easy for the audience to follow
each of the points made. Furthermore, the paper smoothly links pieces of different
primary research articles to conclude that there is an association, though not yet
fully clear, between socioeconomic status and child development outcomes. If
there’s one thing I would like to see, is the intersectionality of race and
socioeconomic status because certain racial minorities often do not have the same
resources, and it would be interesting to see how race would also factor in, but I
completely understand that since it is a literature review, it depends on the
primary research articles and data available. Overall, I though this literature
review was a great read and as a public health major, I am extremely interested in
how disparities can influence health (my topic also focuses on socioeconomic
statue) so I was interested by the topic.

Brandon:

 The writer's questions--if their questions repeat any of those I've asked below, just say "see
above."
o Is there enough call for further research, and is it convincing?
 I believe using more statistics can provide further evidence to support
claims, and especially in literature reviews, more research findings can
solidify points, which is often why literature reviews often have hundreds
of references.
o How can I avoid summarizing the research findings?
 I also have this question, and am not sure of the answer.
 How well does the paper fit the genre of a literature review, i.e. in terms of "thesis" and
approach? Is it clear why a review is needed at this time?
o The paper fits the genre of a literature review in that a thesis is clearly stated and
the writer structures her paper into clearly defined sections including the
Introduction, Trends, Potential Causes, Conclusion and Final Thoughts. The
writer elaborates on the need for a review at this time to better “understand the
relationship between social media usage and depression and anxiety” (Zhang).
The writer thus seeks to address how social media affects the younger population
and how they view themselves as well as the “long term consequences of
excessive social media usage” (Zhang).
 What specific expert audience does the author target? How effectively (i.e. tone, selection,
diction) does the author target that audience?
o I believe that this paper can target researchers who study sleep and public health
professionals because the paper primarily addresses the impact of social media on
the youth population and assess its effects on adolescent depression and anxiety.
The writer uses field specific terminology such as BDI-V scores, the Iowa-
Netherlands Comparison Orientation measure and the Rosenberg self-esteem
scale.
 How well are sources synthesized and assessed? What are the key sections? What are the
patterns or trends the author notes?
o The sources are clearly references throughout the paper and come up often in the
main analysis section of the paper. The key sections in this paper are the
Introduction, Trends, Potential Causes, Conclusion and Final Thoughts. The
author summarizes primary research articles to conclude that there is a positive
relationship between social media usage and depression and anxiety. I also
thought it was interesting that the author brought up the fact that there are still
some benefits to social media usage, as mentioned in the Final Thoughts section.
It is very common for researchers to only focus on their opinion and the point
they are making but the author does a great job in acknowledging the opposing
view in that social capital generated from social media can potentially benefit
one’s mental health.
 How thoroughly does the author call for subsequent research?
o The author calls for subsequent research in order to assess whether there is causal
evidence describing the relationship of social media usage on depression. Another
observation the author makes is that social media usage is a relatively new era of
research due to the recently rising levels of social media usage. Therefore, it is
very difficult to assess causation in studies and the author cites the need for
longitudinal studies to be conducted in order to better assess the causal
relationship between social media usage and mental health.
 What are the strengths of this draft and what most needs to be worked on?
o This draft clearly summarizes primary research articles that detail the effects of
social media usage on participants. The author includes figures in order to explain
certain trends and visualize data in a better format. Maybe one area I would be
interested in knowing about is whether increased time on social media have an
association with mental health outcomes (continuous) instead of just does social
media usage have an effect on mental health (cutoff), but I understand that the
field of study is relatively new so there may not yet be data pertaining to that
question. Overall, this was a very interesting read and definitely applies to not just
most youth, but also to adults as well due to the increasing footprint of
electronics.

Vivian:

 The writer's questions--if their questions repeat any of those I've asked below, just say "see
above."
o How beneficial would it be to cite specific statistics from our studies in our
literature reviews? It is necessary?
 I think citing specific statistics from the studies that we find will be
beneficial to our literature reviews in order to back up our points and
provide concrete evidence for studies conducted by notable
researchers/organizations. Though I don’t think it is required, it will
 definitely add credibility to the literature review which is prized in the
scientific discourse community.
o Currently I suggest some potential avenues for research at the end of each section,
should I move all these sub-points to the end? Or is it okay as is?
 I think that the sub-points are okay as is because they are representative of
the specific section so it is organized well. What I would do, however, is
summarize these points at the end.
 How well does the paper fit the genre of a literature review, i.e. in terms of "thesis" and
approach? Is it clear why a review is needed at this time?
o The paper fits the genre of a literature review in that there is a clear thesis and the
paper is structured into sections including the Introduction, The Game, The
Medium, The Player and the Conclusion. The writes states that there is a clear
need for why a review is needed at this time because it is still not clearly known
why “specific mediums of media usage and the specific mechanisms through
which media usage affects sleep outcomes” (Ma).
 What specific expert audience does the author target? How effectively (i.e. tone, selection,
diction) does the author target that audience?
o I believe that this paper can target researchers who study sleep and public health
professionals because the paper primarily addresses how media usage is affecting
sleep outcomes which can thus influence an individual’s health. The writer uses
field specific terminology such as ‘sleep onset/onset latency’ as well as ‘arousal’.
The tone of the author is informative while there is a little persuasiveness in
summarizing the main points of the primary research articles to demonstrate the
negative impact video games and media usage have on sleep.
 How well are sources synthesized and assessed? What are the key sections? What are the
patterns or trends the author notes?
o The sources are clearly references throughout the paper and come up often
throughout the main body paragraphs of the paper. The key sections in this paper
are the Introduction, The Game, The Medium, The Player and the Conclusion.
The author notes that with most primary research articles, there is evidence that
each perspective (the game itself, the medium, and the player) is associated with
poorer sleep outcomes.
 How thoroughly does the author call for subsequent research?
o The author clearly calls for the need of subsequent research due to the lack of
research analyzing the relationship between sleep and video games. The author
also points out that though each perspective (the game itself, the medium, and the
player) is associated with poorer sleep outcomes, there is not much research that
analyses how these perspectives are interconnected and work together to influence
sleep. Furthermore, the author elaborates on the importance of identifying and
evaluating specific characteristics and mechanisms of how video games influence
sleep in order to examine causality. Lastly, the author expands on how research
done on the relationship between video games and sleep can be translated to other
types of media such as television viewing and social media usage.
 What are the strengths of this draft and what most needs to be worked on?
o This draft demonstrates a clear structure and I am intrigued by the topic of the
relationship between video games and sleep. I also find it interesting that the
 writer looked at three different factors, consisting of the game itself, the medium
and the player. One thing I would personally add to the draft would be a figure or
table that could summarize statistics or display trends in data. Not only would this
give the reader a break from reading a lot of loaded information, but it could also
stress certain trends and points the writer is trying to make (only a suggestion!).
Overall, the literature review was very interesting to read!

6. Once you've answered these questions, post your answers here AS WELL AS SHARE THEM
WITH YOUR AUTHORS.
Answered above