Response Paper

When you study at a college or university, you should be ready to complete various types of writing assignments. For instance, your teacher or professor may ask you to write a response paper sample.

If you know what kind of essay you are required to complete and are able to write it by yourself, take our congratulations: you are really a bright student and you definitely know about response paper!

Students who know nothing or very little about a response paper may find here some useful tips and clues how to do well on this task.

How to Write a Response Paper

Students who are assigned to complete response papers may use several schemes in organizing and structuring their academic paper. There are several ways how to write a response paper. For instance, you may start your paper with a short summary and then add your response in a block.

A sample response paper written according to this model may be organized in the following way:

• Introduction;
• A short summary;
• Agreement;
• Disagreement;
• Consectary.

If you study the response paper examples completed according to the second scheme, you’ll find out that they usually start with a thesis. The following body paragraphs include summarizing and response of each idea stated in the thesis. The academic paper written according to this model may be organized in the following way:

• Thesis;
• Fact’s analysis 1;
• Fact’s analysis 2;
• Fact’s analysis 3;
• Consectary.

Today we have tried to give you some important tips on how to write a response paper. If you sill have some difficulties in writing such papers, you may visit PapersTime.com to get some additional clues on how to complete these tasks successfully.

What Is a Response Paper

Doing a written homework often starts with understanding what kind of academic paper you are going to perform. A critical response paper is viewed like a critique or evaluation of somebody’s essay. You should just reveal and convey your own thoughts about the things you have read in this written sample.

Writing a response paper doesn’t mean that you simply state what you like or don’t like in somebody’s paper. Your task is to analyze and find out strong and weak sides of the essay in reasoning, organization and style. In addition, a good response paper example is a persuasive one. It should contain facts, examples and personal experience to prove your own thoughts and ideas about the written sample and you should totally understand what is a response paper when you write one.

A response paper is often referred to as the reaction essay. However, you shouldn’t mistake a response paper for a formal review - the latter is written in third person, but first-person narrative is used for a response paper. Here are some tips on writing a response paper with an example.

Response Paper Example

Every student knows that any written assignment, including a response paper, should be 100% original and free of plagiarism, but many are surprised to learn that a response paper example can actually be very helpful in creating their own work.

How can other people’s samples help you do your best when writing a response paper? First of all, a response paper sample is very valuable if you haven’t dealt with this form of writing before and have no idea what it should look like. Plus, you can get a better idea about the content and formatting of the paper from looking at other student’s work.

Response Paper Format

As with most types of written assignments, it’s best to start your work with creating an outline. The outline for a response paper is simple. Here is a standard outline of a typical response paper:

• Introduction

The length of an introduction depends on the length of the paper: for a short paper it’s better to keep the introduction up to 1 paragraph long. Introduce the work you’re responding to along with a personal touch: for example, explain how the topics touched in the work correspond with your own beliefs or how much you know about the topic prior to reading the work of the author.

• Summary

A brief summary of the work is very important for those readers who are not familiar with the piece you’re reacting to, but it’s far from being the most vital and longest part of your work. The summary should not be a simple retelling of the story - it should have an analytical nature. For example, here you can discuss whether the author was successful in getting their points across.

• Organizing argument

If you’re dealing with a piece that focuses on one major point, the format of an organizing argument works best. In order to follow this format, you can write as many paragraphs as you need while focusing on whether you agree or disagree with the author. Provide textual evidence for your points, so that the readers know where you’re coming from. Ideally, the evidence should be gather before you even begin writing the outline.

• Conclusion

The conclusion of a short response paper should only be a couple of sentences long. Instead of retelling your arguments or the content of the work, consider analyzing the effect the author’s piece has on the society and you personally.

When working on your response paper, it’s very important to pay attention not just to the content of the paper, but also to the formatting. Most response paper are written in the APA format, so make sure to follow their guidelines, especially when it comes to citing your paper. You can find an APA Works Cited template that will make the job easier. Plus, you can always look at sample APA reaction papers to have a better understanding of what is required of you.

Response Paper Topics: New Ideas

The range of response paper topics is very broad: you can be tasked with reacting with any piece of literature or other form of art there ever existed. If you don’t know what to write your response paper about, here are 10 topics for your inspiration.

1. Corruption is one of the biggest problems of modern society.
2. Is home education better or worse than school education?
3. How is the approach to defining beauty changing with time?
4. How emotional stress affects the human health
5. Which aspects of our lives were changed by the computer?
6. Is immigration bad for the state’s economy?
7. The role of job satisfaction in the life of workers.
8. Analysis of American Gothic by Grant Wood.
9. How the life of college students affected by alcohol?
10. Does liberal approach to upbringing work in the long run?