Paper title: Engaging Saudi EFL students in online peer review in a Saudi EFL context Aim(s): The paper explores the types of peer feedback and student opinions about peer feedback using Google Docs. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3308292

The paper explores peer feedback using Google Docs among university students in a Saudi EFL context. Two aspects examined in the paper to include: (1) what types of feedback do the students give their peers, and (2) what are student perceptions about peer feedback in Google Docs. The study reported two key findings: students offered comments on both global and local areas of writing featuring different types of feedback; students had positive attitudes towards Google Docs.

The aim of the paper was clearly stated. The author did a good job of establishing a research gap for the study. In addition, the paper has extended the existing literature of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) as the study was conducted in an underrepresented context of Saudi Arabs. Therefore, the study presented potential interest in the field of CALL research. Besides its contributions, the study could be improved if some of its drawbacks are addressed. Suggestions for improvement are listed below.

1. Variables: The most obvious inconsistency of the paper is while the author said in the abstract that three aspects were examined (types of corrective feedback, writing development as a result of peer feedback, and student attitudes), it seemed only two were investigated (types of feedback and student opinions).

2. Background: The references are relevant and most are recent, but not 100% referenced correctly. In addition, though the study used Google Docs for online peer review, it barely cited any research using it. Since there has been a shift from blogs and wikis to cloud-based tools, such as Google Docs, a body of research has been carried out using this tool. Given this fact, the study did not seem to keep abreast of very recent research. (a) The author did a good job of reporting what has been reported in previous research, particularly research in the EFL Arab contexts. Factors that might have influenced peer review included (1) times restriction in writing courses might, (2) Saudi EFL students' belief and other cultural norms, among others. A gap was identified, which was: "none of the above-mentioned studies have implemented Google Docs as an online peer review tool and targeted Saudi EFL students who study at a Saudi university". The author further mentioned, according to his/her teaching experience that "some EFL students are reluctant to provide corrective feedback on their peers’ texts when they interact orally in class". But that was giving feedback in speaking, what about writing? In addition, did Rollinson (2005) and Ferris (2003) examine peer review in your context? If not, I'm afraid it wouldn't be suitable to use those papers to explain the observations you made in your own context.

(b) The author said that: "Hence, the emergence of technology can alleviate the above mentioned issues by using online peer review, especially in the Saudi EFL contexts where the majority of students are not accustomed to using technology in a writing course." In what way Google Docs could alleviate the challenges you mentioned above? This needs to be addressed. I can see that Google Docs could solve the time restricted issue in writing classes, but what about other solutions that it could address? Research that investigated the potential of Google Docs regarding the challenges you mentioned would be more suitable. In addition, how peer review could be possible when students in your context are both bound by the cultural norms which, as you argued, prevent them from giving feedback orally, and "not accustomed to using technology"?

(c) While the author mentioned two areas examined in previous face-to-face peer review studies in the Saudi contexts (student attitudes and types of error corrections), he/she didn't report what those studies found. Given the author asked the same research questions in the online environment, it is necessary to report what was found in the face-to-face environment so that the author could compare how effective online peer feedback is. Otherwise, the research questions would be rather superficial.

1. Method: (a) The author did not what they meant by ‘types of corrective feedback,’ except saying that the purpose of the questionnaire was to "elicit information about which writing errors, global or local, and which corrective feedback types that the participants focused on..." Key terms of the study should be more clearly defined. (b) Though the author mentioned in the last paragraph of the Context and participants section that they aimed to measure "how the provided feedback in Google Docs can develop their writing," they didn't actually measure this. The author seemed to reduce their measures from three variables to two (types of feedback and student attitudes). At the end of the Results section, the author said that: "the author was not able to access the long-term impact of using online peer review via Google Docs on participants’ writing development because they responded to the comments only at the time of the study." If no measurement of writing development was done, this variable should be removed. (c) No methods were mentioned as to how the author made sure the questionnaire measured what it was intended to measure. (d) Why were interviews carried out via phone? How comfortable were students answering questions by phone? This needs to be explained. How did the author make sure their notes were exactly what the students said in the interviews? (e) The author didn't mention how coding reliability was established.

2. Results: (a) The presentation of the data could have been improved. In the second paragraph, the author said that: "all participants practiced three types of corrective feedback: clarification request, explicit correction, and meta-linguistic feedback," but this isn't correct. As shown in Figure 1, Ryan didn't give explicit correction. Also, Ryan, Mahmoud, and Sami didn't offer meta-linguistic feedback. (b) Nothing was said about Figure 2. (c) Were the names presented in Figure 3 pseudonyms or were they students' real names? Meanwhile, in Figure 4, the reviewer was anonymous. These inconsistencies need to be fixed to make sure that students are not identifiable. The presentation of Figure 3 had many repetitions.
   (d) Some of the results were conflicting. For example, "they preferred to provide as well as receive comments on local and global issues" vs. "The last question in the questionnaire reveals that the participants preferred receiving comments from peers via Google Docs." (e) Why were teacher comments mentioned in the Questionnaire section? It's not relevant to the aim of the paper. (f) The last paragraph of the Interview section, it seemed the author wanted to address the question on student improvement in this paragraph, but it was done rather hastily. The author might want to consider removing the writing development variable because it wasn’t measured.

3. Discussion: (a) Besides saying that some of the findings were in line with previous research, little interpretation was further added. (b) The author stated that: "The findings reveal that all five participants are able to improve and adjust their writing when they receive online comments from their peers..." This is an over-statement because the author didn't measure student writing development. (c) This implication wasn't supported by research: "Thus, the author recommends EFL instructors to integrate online peer review in the university writing courses and implement it as a tool for revision that values both form and content." The author didn't study student revision. Similarly, no back-up was found for this comment by the author: "Another recommendation, EFL instructors should move students from the five-essay genre to advanced genres, such as research paper, to enhance EFL students’ rhetorical knowledge."

Minor points like figures/tables not being mentioned in the text, a missing reference, typos, and other inconsistencies.

1. Repetitions can be seen for the description of Figure 4.
2. The questionnaire should be attached to the manuscript.
3. Finally, research has established that peer feedback training is essential for it to be successful, but this aspect was not mentioned in the paper. Given your participants were neither familiar with peer feedback, nor with Google Docs reviewing, training seemed necessary.