Okay, now it is time to gain a little bit of experience with accepting constructive criticism from our peers. This can be a difficult thing for some of us. Giving ‘constructive’ criticism, instead of just criticizing, can be a difficult thing for some people as well.
Peer review is one of the most important aspects of scientific research and it is one aspect which people mostly learn without any formal training. The quality of peer review often varies considerably, both in quality and ‘constructiveness’.
So, I have assigned each of you to review one proposal. You will do this anonymously, which is how the peer review process typically works. In other words, the people who wrote the proposal will not know your identity, when you contribute your comments. I want you to take this responsibility seriously. I realize you might not be an expert on the particular topic. It may be worth doing a bit of exploration on your own. One quick way would be to return to their original proposal and look at some of the references that are cited in the first proposal.
When you finish, please submit your comments via email to me <chuck@xtbg.ac.cn>.
Comment on three things:
1. Overall quality and strength of the idea or hypothesis in the proposal
2. Quality and power of the methods
3. Are the proposed analyses and outputs adequate?