I never expected peer reviewing to make me a better writer, but it has.
I do a LOT of peer reviews, and they’re about much more than catching typos or fixing grammar.
When you review enough documentation, you notice the same patterns:
- An assumption that isn’t obvious to a new user.
- A missing prerequisite.
- Inconsistent terminology.
- A step that’s perfectly clear to the author but confusing to someone using the feature for the first time.
Every review exposes you to different ways of organizing information, explaining complex ideas, and uncovering assumptions you might miss in your own writing.
I also spend a lot of time suggesting changes for consistency, whether that’s terminology, structure, or style. Readers should be able to open any topic in a shared documentation set and know what to expect. At the same time, reviewing other writers’ work has introduced me to techniques and perspectives that continue to shape my own writing.
After reviewing hundreds (maybe thousands) of documents, I still learn something new from almost every one.
If you regularly peer review, what’s one thing it’s taught you?
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