Alex Donohue

Peer review for Stephanie Palis

This proposal offers a clear solution to defined problem that is clearly important to the

author. She offers multiple problems with her topic, as well as multiple solutions and clearly

explains how these solutions could be carried out. The formatting of her essay, especially the

heading and subheadings, allows the reader to clearly see the authors main ideas throughout the

essay, as well as breaks up information in order to keep the reader interested.

While the overall formatting structure is solid, there are some places it could be

improved. In the author topic sentence of the objectives section the author states that there are

two objectives, so this section should be broken up into 2 very short sections. She also lacks a

methods section. Further breaking down the solutions section into solutions and methods would

allow her to have both. Her current solutions section doesn't just cover the overall goal or

solution but also offers how to achieve it, or the method. Her solutions could be more broad,

and then more detailed in the methods section. For example I think her three main solutions are:

1. Add more housing

2. Improve the current housing selection process

3. Allow students to live on campus

In her solutions section she could explain how each solution achieves her objectives. How do

these solutions make the housing process easier and make sure rising second year students

will be living on campus If she finds that her solutions and objectives don't match, then she may

need to change either one. This may be a problem because one of her objectives is for students to

live on campus, but the solution suggests students live off campus. Then in the methods section

she can explain how these solutions would be carried out. For example, in the section add more
housing she will explain how northeastern can achieve this by building more housing. To

expand on this idea she might consider the possibility of northeastern buying nearby off-campus

housing such as the many apartment buildings bordering campus on forsyth and hemenway, so

that they can include these buildings in their housing process so students do not have to move

off-campus. Then for her solution to improve the housing process she further explain how to

improve the housing selection process, her main point being, reserve more housing for second

years, let rising second-year students choose first and shorten the timeline. Her final

method would be Allow students to live off campus. Because this essay is a proposal, there

should be a section between methods and conclusion explaining costs.

The context note for this essay is excellent in explaining the exigency of the essay, saying

how it is time sensitive, and how improvement could help students next year not have to go

through the struggle current students are going through. I like how she explained not only her

primary audience, but her secondary audience as well. The author was also able to keep her tone

consistent throughout the essay. One thing she could do to improve her context note is to explain

how the audience influenced this tone and style of the essay.