Disruptive Expertise Peer Review Guide
Overview
For this assignment, you will write a ~400-word critique of a classmate’s Disruptive Expertise page. Your goal is to politely give honest, specific feedback that helps your classmate make their page better. You want to give the kind of feedback that would be helpful for your own essay.
A good peer review identifies what’s working and what isn’t, and explains why. Vague feedback like “it’s pretty good” or “needs more detail” isn’t useful. Specific feedback like “the section on contemporary reactions only describes excitement — I didn’t see any fear or anxiety, which the assignment asks for” is useful.
Before You Start
Open your classmate’s page and read it all the way through—even if quickly—before writing anything. Keep the Disruptive Expertise Guidelines open in another tab so you can refer back to what the assignment requires.
What to Evaluate
Address each of the following areas in your critique. In your write up, you can use headers if you want; or your critique can flow as regular paragraphs — but make sure you cover all four areas.
1. Does it read like a coherent essay?
A strong page tells a compelling story with a point. It doesn’t just list facts — it builds an argument about how a certain technology caused a disruption in expertise and what that historical episode tells us about today.
- Does the narrative flow logically from one section to the next?
- Is there a clear through-line connecting the technology → expertise → public reaction → what happened → AI connection?
- Do any sections feel abrupt, disconnected, or like they belong somewhere else?
- Does the conclusion (the AI connection) feel earned, or does it feel tacked on?
2. Does it look like the Wikipedia model?
Our pages are designed to feel like high-quality, well-formatted reference articles.
- Does the page have multiple images that are actually relevant to the content (not just decorative)?
- Are the images placed near the text they relate to, with informative captions?
- Are there clear section headings that help a reader navigate?
- Does the overall layout look polished and complete, or does it feel like a rough draft?
3. Does the content meet the assignment requirements?
Check that the page covers all five required sections from the assignment:
- The Technology — is it clearly explained for a general audience?
- The Moment of Disruptione — does the page explain why this technology felt disruptive to people at the time (at least in terms of expertise)?
- Contemporary Reactions — does it include at least one specific historical primary source (a quote, document, article, speech, etc.)? Does it capture both hopes and fears, or just one side?
- What Actually Happened — does it honestly assess the extent to which predictions came true? Or does it just summarize more history without answering the question?
- Connection to AI — is the comparison specific and thoughtful, or generic (“AI is also a disruptive technology and challenges expertise…”)?
4. Research and sourcing
- Does the page feel grounded in real evidence, or does it read like it was written mostly by AI?
- Are sources cited or linked where significant claims are made?
- Does the AI reflection section (at the end) engage seriously with the limits of AI-assisted research, or is it superficial?
How to Write Your Critique
Hey, guess what? You can use AI to help you! But as you’ve seen, AI tends to provide vague advice and can be too agreeable. So, you’ll need to work with it to provide useful advice.
- If you use AI, make sure you’re guiding it to verify certain claims not supported in the essay and provide alternative perspectives that YOU ALSO think are useful.
- Be specific in your suggestions
- Evaluate specific claims AND the big picture
- Don’t worry about small errors, unless there are so many they are distracting.
- Be kind and helpful
Submitting Your Review
Submit your ~400-word critique to Canvas on the discussion board for Peer Reviews. Include the URL of the page you reviewed at the top of your submission.