Peer Pressure...

It is my gut response to say that I fully believe that in life the peer review process is greatly flawed. As I see it, the process can be swayed for you or against you depending on who your peers are and their personal feelings about you.

In a perfect world where people didn't have malevolent agendas, the peer review process would be wonderful, however if within your peer group there is someone who doesn't exactly like you then the process becomes flawed.

In the peer review process, if your peers are a bunch of uneducated mouth breathers, then the feedback you receive will not be helpful in anyway and could possibly hinder your progress if you happen to take it and use it. On the flip side of things, if your peers are echelons above you, the feedback you get from them will be to intense for you to make your own properly.

As is stands now, I have no problem with the peer review process if the group is diverse enough to make it fair to all involved, then I'm game. I personally would rather the professor or whomever is actually going to grade me be the one that gives me feedback on my writing.
If you take a look at our current judicial system and how well (that was obviously sarcastic) the peer review process works for some of our lesser citizens, then it may put it into perspective. When people get convicted and sentenced for crimes that they actually did not commit just because a group your so called peers become convinced that you did it. I know that if I were to ever be on the defendant side of things in a court room I wouldn't be comfortable with the caliber of people that this country is churning out judging me.

Words: 306
Characters: 1652