Peer review on Alphonsus's WA2

I think that paragraph one is a good beginning as you relate the relationship between the depletion in fossil fuels and the increasing demand of energy to the need for the development of Gen IV nuclear reactors. There is one part I believe that the in-text citation was done wrongly and there should be a connector between human history and the fight instead of just a comma. The part is : As the natural fossil fuels run out in the next 10 to 20 years(Graham Jones, 2003), it might become one of the greatest disasters of human history, the fight for energy might lead to wars in the years ahead. The in-text citation (Graham Jones, 2003) should be placed at the end of the sentence. I suggest that you can add in the connector ‘and’ after human history.

For paragraph 2, 3 and 4, you state your counterclaims and rebuttals before the supporting reasons. I believe that it will be much clearer if you place your supporting reasons before your counterclaims and rebuttals. In paragraph 3and 4, the in-text citation (Nature Vol. 429, 2004) is wrong as it should the author surname follow by the year instead of the name of the journal follow by the year. Lastly, more effort should be spent when compiling the reference list. Overall, the essay is well done. =)

Peer review on Eric's WA1

First paragraph is very straight to the point; this allows readers to know exactly what they are expecting for the rest of the essay. The thesis statement is the last statement of the first paragraph – People should see climate change as a problem for both nature and them.

The topic sentence for the second paragraph is nature ecosystem can save lives. The writer puts in a lot of effort to research more based on this idea and add in a lot more examples apart from the sources provided. One example that he stated is the tsunami that swept through Asia in 2004, killing an estimated 300k people. There are also in-text citations to account for the examples he stated.

I think that the writer can further elaborate on the point in paragraph 3. Maybe he can give some examples to support his idea.

For paragraph 4, although the writer stated the examples of Gribbles using enzymes to break down agricultural waste products. He did not add in any in-text citation.

Conclusion is neatly done; the writer summarizes his main points into the last paragraph and ended the essay with the thesis statement. However, the reference list is not done properly. Instead of only putting in the respective websites for the reference, the writer should also add in the author, year, month, day, title of work, retrieved month day.

Climate is a long term average of weather over a period of at least 10 years. Climate change, also known as global warming is the heating of the earth by greenhouse gases. Green house gases mainly consist of methane, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and fluorinated gases; these gases trap heat within the surface-troposphere system and cause global warming. Climate model simulation shows that the climate change that we are facing now is due to human activities. The increment in world temperature since the starting of the industrial revolution is due to high carbon dioxide emission.

The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will come out with a synthesis report every seven years and in the most recent AR4 report, it states that temperatures and sea levels will rise even after achieving stabilization of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. A total of 24 different climate models are used for simulation and they all produced climate models that differ slightly from one another. These models are called global climate models (GCM) on a large scale and regional climate models (RCM) on a small scale. Although the climate of Singapore is modelled using RCM due to its small land area, some of the information is taken from the GCM. The results taken from the RCM can be used for hydrological impact studies such as flooding, soil erosion and temperature rise. Apart from GCM and RCM, there is another model called the weather research and forecast model (WRF). Unlike RCM, this model has to be big enough to observe the full impact. The WRF model for Singapore has to include Vietnam since the monsoon winds blowing from there has a huge impact on Singapore.

A very big welcome to those who are taking the same module as me and have no choice but to read this blog. My name is Huang Bin, I am 22 years old and will be 23 this coming september. I graduated from Sinapore Polytechnic with a diploma in aeronautical engineering (DARE) in 2007. This diploma is also known as 'do and regret' engineering since it is pretty worthless. After graduating from polytechnic, I went to serve national service which pretty much wasted two precious years of my teenage life. My vocation in the army was infantry recce. The above description basically summarize my life in the past five years.