Honesty is not my forte. So when I'm asked to review my colleagues' papers, I get a bit hesitant. I mean how do you nicely tell someone that their paper sucks? Or what do I say when my classmates ramble on about how good my paper is even though I half-assed it the night before it was due? Fortunately, the former has not been an issue in my current English class because all of the papers I've read so far have been well-written. The latter has not happened yet because I've done all my essays ahead of time, although that may soon change. Or maybe my classmates are lying to me too and don't want to admit that my papers suck. Perhaps, we're nothing more than a confederacy of liars.
Then reality strikes. The essay grading process reaches the next level and we receive feedback from our instructor. Jay Rubin, demon lord of the academia, has no qualms with telling people how shitty their papers are. To be more specific, he wipes his ass with your paper then rubs it in your face in front of everyone. The only positive part about the whole experience is that there's so many students in class and so little time that each individual is ridiculed for only five minutes before Jay moves on to the next hapless victim.
But before that moment of truth, three of us are huddled together, trying to look busy so that we avoid suspicion. None of us wants to read our papers because we're embarrassed. Peer review is like getting tested for drugs. Even if you don't want to, you must hand in your urine sample. It doesn't matter how foul the sample is. All you can do is put on a fake smile and hand container over to the nurse who will put on an equally fake smile to conceal her disgust.
This is what peer reviews remind me of.
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