Writing a response paper

Overview A response paper requires three separate skills: You must define what an author means; You must summarize what an author says; You must respond to the text by stating your own thoughts on the meaning and purpose. Your response needs to be articulate and you need to back up your thoughts with relevant examples.

Define Specifically state what an author means and wants the audience to believe State the author’s purpose or motive for writing the text

summary Use three sentences to define any text of any length. (You may need to use long, complex sentences!) State what happened in the beginning, what happened in the middle, and what happened in the end. Hint: Don’t give away the ending. When writing a response paper, summarize the part of the text that you have been asked to evaluate. Write just enough that the audience knows what you are talking about, but don’t use summary as a filler.

Respond to the text This is the most important part of the paper. Here you state your opinion and back it up with relevant examples from the text as well as real world examples.

Template for your introduction Sentence 1—Name the author, title, and make a broad statement that introduces the author’s purpose for writing the text. Sentences 2, 3, and 4 (more if needed)—give a brief summary of what you have read Make sure you include the author’s purpose or motive for writing this text Hint: the more in-depth your introduction/summary of the author’s ideas, the better response you can write.

Your response You write your opinion of this author’s work. Some sentence stems that you can use are I felt that The reader can conclude that It is clear that the author wants I believe that

Your response, continued Give examples from the text to prove your opinion. You need to use real world examples as well.