Several Florida State University School of Communication graduate students served as conference paper reviewers for the Human Communication and Technology Division (HCTD), a part of the National Communication Association (NCA), in helping the organization evaluate submissions to be presented at the annual convention on Nov. 21-24 in Washington, D.C.

Nine graduate students from the School of Communication, along with faculty members Dr. Ulla Sypher and Dr. Stephen McDowell, reviewed papers for the conference, as Florida State accounted for 15 percent of the total reviewers (78).  The students were: Pablo Correa, Mary Griffith, Qihao Ji, Lingzi Jin, Shuang Li, Kyle McNease, David Montez, Ning Sun and Pu Xu.

The main reason for the high participation rate by Florida State was a graded assignment in Dr. Sypher’s Spring 2013 course, RTV 5253 New Communication Technology: Theory and Research.

Sypher required students to sign up as reviewers with HCTD, gave detailed instructions on how to review a conference paper and then graded her students’ reviews of conference paper submissions.

“The assignment allows students to measure themselves against a realistic yardstick,” Sypher said. “Most students are surprised, finding that the papers they review are similar or even lower in quality compared to their own writing. Giving detailed feedback on how to improve the paper to the anonymous author makes students think about the writing process from a different perspective. The exercise tends to motivate students while improving their own writing and giving them a service line for their vita.”

Sypher had tried peer review among her own students before but found that some students are hesitant to be critical of work done by people they know. The conference paper review process is “blind,” making it feel safer, especially for Master’s students, who may not be confident in their academic work yet.

In the discussion that followed the completed assignment, several students indicated they intended to keep their name on the reviewer list as they found the process to be very valuable. Sypher first used grading of conference paper review as an assignment several years ago when she was the division chair of HCTD, and was responsible for recruiting reviewers and creating the division’s conference program.