USING ONLINE PEER REVIEW AS A STRATEGY TO IMPROVE WRITING SKILLS

This research investigated the use of online peer review as a strategy to improve writing skills in the revision process. This qualitative study will recruit two peers of a private university in Malang based on two criteria 1) they have passed an academic writing course with an excellent score, and 2) they were students who use online media to conduct peer reviews. Using a semi-structured interview, the students were asked what types of online resources they use for online peer review, and how they do peer review online. The interview data will be analyzed using content analysis to triangulate the data, investigator triangulation will be performed by involving two data analysts. The result of the study was students used WhatsApp and Zoom media to conduct online peer review, and students provide their writing in the form of an online file to the peer for review about grammar, writing effectiveness, and diction errors with several platforms, such as grammar checkers and online dictionaries to assist the revision process.


Introduction
Writing has been widely thought of as the most difficult to master in English (Watcharapunyawong & Usaha, 2012). Writing proficiency necessitates several complex and diverse stages, requiring pupils to concentrate on "How to Come Up with Ideas, how to arrange them in a logical order, how to take advantage of discourse markers and rhetorical patterns to incorporate them cohesively within a written text, ways to modify text for greater clarity, how to alter text for proper grammar, and how to create a final product" (H. Douglas Brown; Heekyeong Lee, n.d.). Writing skills are very important and we should understand every mistake we make, but few are willing to be revised. Writing, according to Şen and Şimşek (n.d)., is the most problematic use of English in higher education. To help pupils understand the complexities of those writing processes, the use of online peer review as a strategy is then required to assist students in effectively completing each writing step.
Writing is recognized as a one-of-a-kind talent (Klimova, 2010). Writing, on the other hand, is a difficult and intricate process. They do not believe this for no reason. Writing skills necessitate more concentration; a piece may need to be rewritten several times before reaching the desired writing level Kellogg (2008) because they must consider various components to make the writing intelligible. Furthermore, because they are aware that their work will be seen by others, student writers may put greater attention to early versions (Cho & Schunn, 2007). To help pupils understand the complexities of those writing processes, Long writing tasks should be divided into smaller components, and students should take feedback at all stages of the process (Baker, 2016). As a result, to aid university students in enhancing this skill, we must remember that what constitutes a standard language, what is appropriate and correct, and even the fundamental definitions of grammar are reliant on what has been described and codified in written language (Carter, 1995).
The writing process is very important to do to improve students' writing skills. This is also stated by (Graham et al., 2013), that writing can be used as a learning tool as well as to persuade others. Nowadays, writing is one of the most widely utilized modes of communication (Klimova, 2012). In the writing process, we must cultivate good writing habits for college students. According to best practice, long writing assignments should be broken down into smaller parts, and students should receive feedback throughout the process (Bean, n.d.). Students need feedback to be able to understand the mistakes they make. However, providing feedback can be laborious. Peer spend time commenting on technical writing issues, such as sentence structure, word selection, and organization. Such detailed work is time-consuming (Herrington & Cadman, 1991). In addition, students do not respond consistently to feedback and often express a feeling discouraged by comments (Jönsson, 2013). But, Writers will get a higher profit from writing feedback than those who don't receive it. This online peer review of students may be an attractive alternative to teacher feedback. Many kinds of the literature suggest that peer review should be part of the feedback process (Althauser & Darnall, 2001). Moreover, peer collaboration is effective in the following aspects Students who work alone are less likely to discover their misunderstandings Markman, (1979) and the contradiction between two very opposite things in the text (Otero & Kintsch, 1992). Researchers consistently state that the feedback process in writing will be able to improve the quality of students in final submissions by involving students (Jensen & Fischer, 2005). Writing researchers emphasize the use of feedback to modify and rewrite to improve writing skills (Schriver, 1989).
Formative feedback is an essential component of this writing process. It can be offered by the teacher or a peer in its application. On the other hand, 2020 provides strong evidence: COVID-19 requires schools and teachers to adapt, and ongoing cries for justice emphasize the need for more action, both online and offline, to provide equal possibilities for studying and learning. This gets us to the main point of our two reviews on this topic. Early feedback online resources such as WhatsApp and Zoom meetings as a feedback process and assisted by Google, online grammar checkers, and online dictionaries, were generally created with peer-centered goals in mind, such as making it simple to fix grammatical faults, Misspellings, language effectiveness, and data retrieval are all issues that must be addressed. This can aid in the support of more context-specific and studentcentered concerns. The greater emphasis on formative instructor feedback-the use of comments rather than describing value to assist the process and growth as well as the advantages of giving the obvious benefit of peer review for reviewers helps to emphasize the collaborative aspect of the writing process, which places a premium on student choice and experience. This review's specific emphasis on online is beneficial for many of today's partial or whole virtual writing courses. In online writing classes, as students negotiate their writing growth more frequently, formative input may become increasingly crucial. Formative feedback is critical for the growth of pupils' writing, particularly while compiling and revising (Anderson et al., n.d.). It will also require assistance, to instill confidence in students and people are encouraged as they reply and as well as receiving feedback, especially if they believe they are still growing as authors (Aull, 2020).
As reviewed above, most research is to enable learners to master the knowledge and skills that should be focused on before, during, and after writing. So far, it is still difficult to find research that reports the use of online peer-review strategies to improve writing skills. Then it becomes a huge challenge for researchers to respond to this challenge. And then conduct this current research, trying to how they should organize the text and knowledge; And what kind of plan, practice, and arrangement are crucial in the writing process. In this case, the following research questions are raised: 1. What types of online resources are university students used to conduct peer reviews? 2. How do University students do online peer reviews?

Method
Descriptive qualitative was the design in the current research, involving 2 peer groups at Malang Private University. Participants were assigned to answer interview questions and asked about their preference for writing skills and learning strategies. The interview question is used because the data collection process is carried out directly by the researcher himself, so in this case, the researcher is directly involved in the data collection process, including the observation and interview process.
This research was conducted at a small private comprehensive college at the university in Malang. Two peer groups were involved as respondents based on interview techniques that the researchers did through file-sharing via WhatsApp and conferences at zoom meetings to ask answers that were still lacking. These two groups are university students who have excellent scores and use online media to conduct peer reviews.
As a research tool, a set of six self-construction interview questions written in the participants' first language (Indonesian) was produced. This instrument has been translated into Indonesian, simplified, and suited to the subjects' language proficiency (Zuhairi & Umamah, 2016). In this question, we're asked to explore information about the online peer-review process carried out by participants to improve writing skills. The interview questions were checked and validated by an expert in English language teaching.
The data collection would ask participants to answer questions that have been made, which have been translated into Indonesian. The questions consist of three questions that would answer the research question, two questions as additional information that the researcher might need later, and one opening question to find out student responses about writing. Then give the participants some rules, indicating that they agree to participate in this research and are willing to participate in some interviews, and continue in several ways. First, the online peer-review process is carefully structured in several ways. To start, students were asked to answer six questions that have been asked. This requirement allows instructors to blind each student's question. in this case, the instructor gives 30-35 minutes to answer questions and This interview was conducted three times to obtain consistent results from the participants. Students with a full concept would comment on the question. Second, the score is based on students' performance in peer review. The interview session was conducted via WhatsApp, then would clarify via Zoom to validate the data.
To triangulate the data, the researcher performed triangulation by involving two data analysts (the first author and a colleague). The data was analyzed using content analysis by the methods suggested by (Renz et al., 2018). Conducting content analysis involves the following procedures: (a) ) Transcribing interview results to prepare data, (b) reading and examine the transcripts, (c) putting notes on transcripts to identify different categories of information, and (d) building the unit of analysis process through the use of themes that represent expressions of major concepts or an issue, (e) creating a coding scheme to completely arrange data, (f) every text must be coded, (g) obtaining inferences from coded data, and (h) analyzing and explaining the findings.

Findings
Problem 1: What types of online resources are university students used to conduct peer reviews?
After performing several steps in this analysis: coding the data, organizing the data and themes, and identifying the data from the interviews, the interpretation is presented in the following section. In terms of the online resources they use to conduct online peer reviews, it was found that university students use the WhatsApp applications and zoom meetings to facilitate their online peer review activities.

"…I exchange the results of my answers with my friends with each other online usually via WhatsApp." (student 2) "…via WhatsApp and if it is not clear, then we do it via zoom…" (student 1)
Not without reason, they use these two applications. This is because both have been widely used by many people and they can do online peer review through this application.
"...I use WhatsApp and Zoom… because they are not only simple to use, but they are also well known by many individuals, thus problems are unusual…" (student 1) "…I use these two applications since they are basic and straightforward to use... Zoom meetings are also extensively used during a pandemic like this, and for good reason. This is because the share screen button at the bottom allows me to easily share information about various chores and display the results of my writing…" (student 2) Problem 2: How do University students do online peer review?
In answering the second research question, interview analysis was carried out 3 times to ensure that their answers remained consistent and did not change. So that all the steps that researchers have taken have obtained fixed results. On the whole, student reviewers consistently conduct online peer reviews by sending their screenshots or files to be corrected via WhatsApp. This method is considered quite effective because it does not require energy to be able to meet directly with friends who are intended to conduct peer reviews.
"…to go online… I usually take screenshots of my text, sometimes I also send my files directly via WhatsApp..." (student 1) In addition, student 1 added that in the online peer review process, she used a zoom meeting if she felt that the results obtained were not clear. "...and if it is not clear, then we do it via zoom…". After that, University students get feedback online related to the content written regarding grammar errors and related to the effectiveness of writing.
"Feedback from my friends after doing an online peer review they gave suggestions regarding the content I wrote by telling them about the use of grammar and also suggestions regarding the effectiveness of writing…" (student 1) "The feedback I get is advice regarding the grammar mistakes I wrote..." (student 2) In another feedback, it was found that student 2 got suggestions regarding diction errors that the readers did not understand. "…. they commented on the choice of words (diction) that I used to get more attention so that the writing would be effective and not cause misunderstandings to the readers…".
To minimize writing errors, they make revisions to the writings that have received feedback from online peer review activities. Revisions are carried out by improving the content related to grammar, diction, and effective use of words with the help of applications (Google, online grammar checker, online dictionary).
"…I make revisions by improving my content by paying attention to the use of correct grammar and reducing words that are not needed in writing by using the application online grammar checker, google, and online dictionary.…." (student 1). "..The revision that I did was correcting the diction and use online grammar checker, google, and online dictionary applications to correct sentence formation errors. …" (student 2). To deal with difficulties in the revision process, they need a long time to be able to make revisions properly and correctly. they reveal the time it takes between 20-35 minutes. "…It took me 30-35 minutes in this situation." (Student 1) and ". I need 20-30 minutes." (student 2).

Discussion
Research has shown that peer review can help improve students' writing skills, and students can provide high-quality feedback. There is less research on the peer-review process. This research aims to contribute to this knowledge gap is reflected in two aspects. First, this research examines online resources for online peer review. These two research uncovered an online peer-review process conducted by university students.
The first finding of a semi-structured interview study revealed that the online resources used by university students to conduct online peer reviews are the WhatsApp application and also the Zoom meeting to get valid results. Peers will find it simpler to perform online evaluations and learn how to offer formative comments with the help of these two tools. The majority of student reviewers can give comments that identify the problem and provide solutions. The fact that the overall quality of student comments is fairly good and concentrated on topics of significance and the point is important since studies have shown that pupils gain equally, it is just as important to give feedback as it is to receive input (Nicol & Milligan, 2006).
Second, from the results of interviews conducted by researchers, most student reviewers can provide comments, point out the problem, and suggest how to solve the problem. Students receive feedback about their participation in the creative process based on the writing content displayed on the page; feedback is given in the comments section of the student page. The students also received feedback on their written products.
The quality of student feedback is it's usually quite high, and it's important to focus on questions of meaning and argument because studies have shown that, compared with receiving feedback, students benefit from providing feedback, even more. (Baker, 2016).
Interestingly, in this feedback process, digital resources such as word processing software, Google, online dictionaries, and online grammar checkers are also used to solve language problems such as grammar and mechanics in the revision process. This is important evidence that the integration of technology in writing classes provides promising benefits for students (Hughes et al., 2019). This is following the agreement findings from Yot-Domínguez and Marcelo, (2017) report that university students usually prefer to use social support. Throughout the writing process, technology can provide scaffolding and assistance. as We know, for example, that using a word processor can greatly improve revision and even increase students' enthusiasm for writing Morphy and Graham (2012), such as Google, online grammar checker, online dictionary.
In contrast, using online platforms to give feedback on students' writing process shows the real value of digital technology supports students' participation in the text-writing process. The difference between this online formative assessment practice and traditional paper-based teaching lies in its rich "instant and continuous feedback opportunities" (Gikandi et al., 2011). In addition, interview data show that using online space for evaluation can make them feel safe and at ease about the quality of writing and help them stay focused on their work. As a result, the focus of this study was on how peer review could improve students' writing processes. While specific outcomes were not evaluated in this study, final articles as a whole were successful and indicative of a competent writing process.

Conclusion
Peer review, in essence, aids in the improvement of student performance on certain assignments. Online peer review, as an active engagement strategy, has the potential to boost students' writing skills during this COVID-19 pandemic, when face-to-face activities are extremely difficult to do. So, an online peer review can be carried out using WhatsApp as a file-sharing platform and Zoom meetings as a tool to show each other the results of assignments and confirm feedback findings that may not be easily comprehended. Furthermore, they can use various supporting technologies such as (Google, online grammar checker, and online dictionary) to help them modify the writing that has resulted from the feedback. Therefore, online peer review is needed to improve good writing skills.
Future research should continue to assess both the procedure and the outcomes to better understand how to conduct an effective online peer-review process. It would be beneficial to learn more about if and how student writers respond to feedback from their peers. One option would be to require students to make a statement describing how they used the comments they received in rewriting their papers.