English 421: Technical Writing

The main difference in responding face to face and responding online is that you can explain yourself better.  When you respond online, it is sometimes hard to let the reader know exactly what you mean.  When face to face, you can explain yourself better and they can ask you to clarify what you wrote.  In the cover letter that I reviewed, there was one part that I was having trouble explaining how to fix.  Since it was face to face, I just wrote down what I meant and then explained it to them.  This worked much more effectively than if I were to respond online. 

Although responding face to face works very well, responding online can work just as well.  The main advantage to responding online is that it is quicker.  You can just write down what you mean and let the reader interpret what you wrote.  As long as you explain yourself clearly, responding online can be just as effective to responding face to face. 

Overall, I think that both responding methods can effectively explain what you are writing.  If you are face to face you can let them know exactly what you mean by telling them.  If you are online, it might be a good idea to make sure what you write is clear and easy to interpret.  That way they get the most out of your peer review.