Suggestions and Guidelines
for Peer-Group Editing
of Position Paper #1

1. When you get into your small groups, introduce yourselves, and share copies of your papers with each other.

2. Choose one paper to discuss first. (Suggestion: Go in alphabetical order by family name.)

3. The other people in the group might find it useful to imagine themselves as members of a committee set up by the Provost to make a recommendation. Their purpose is to try to help the author clarify his or her beliefs and arguments, so that they will be able to make a recommendation to the Provost on purely logical grounds (again: ignore politics!).

4. Start by asking the author to state (or read) his or her beliefs about whether computer science is a science, giving his or her reasons for those beliefs.

5. Any time you have a question, ask it. Here are some suggestions:
   • Why did you say       rather than      ?
   • What did you mean when you said      ?
   • Can you give me an example of      ?
   • Can you give me more details about      ?
   • Do you think that       is always true?
   • Why? (This is always a good question to ask.)
   • How?

6. The author should not get defensive. The committee members are friendly. Critical, but friendly.

7. Keep a written record of the questions and replies. This will be useful to the author, for revision.

8. After spending at least 10 minutes on the first paper, move on to the next, going back to step (2) above, changing roles. Spend about 15 minutes per paper.

9. At home, over the next week, please revise your paper to take into consideration the comments made by your fellow students (i.e., your "peers"): Perhaps defend your claims better, or clarify statements that were misunderstood, etc. For help, see Dima or me.