When an instructor assigns a reading, some form of response is always required. For example, you might be expected to participate in a class discussion, analyze the reading on an essay exam, or research the topic further and report your findings. By responding to material, you understand and learn it better. A common assignment is a response paper, which requires you to read an essay, analyze it, and write about some aspect of it.

Before beginning a response paper, make sure you understand the assignment.

If you are uncertain about your instructor’s expectations, be sure to ask.

When writing your response paper, you may include a brief summary as part of your introduction. (See the section on summarizing.) But concentrate on interpreting and evaluating what you have read. Rather than attempting to discuss all of your reactions, focus on one of the following:

For example, suppose your instructor asks you to read an article entitled “Advertising: A Form of Institutional Lying,” which argues that advertisements deceive consumers by presenting half-truths, distortions, and misinformation. Your instructor asks you to write a two-page paper responding to the essay but gives you no other directions. In writing this paper, you might take one of the following approaches.

For an assignment like this one, or for any response paper, how should you decide what to write about? How can you come up with ideas about a reading? Figure 3.7 presents an effective, step-by-step process for discovering ideas for response. Each of the steps is discussed, within the context of a reading and writing assignment, in the sections that follow.

One way to start ideas flowing for a response paper is to connect, or synthesize, the ideas expressed in the reading with your own ideas, knowledge, and experiences. Doing so builds a bridge between your ideas and the author’s. To begin synthesizing ideas, follow these steps.

The key-word response you just wrote will serve as a point of departure for further thinking. Start by explaining your response; then write down ideas as they come to you, trying to approach the reading from many different perspectives. Here is the result of one student’s key-word response to “American Jerk.”

After reading “American Jerk,” I felt annoyed and insulted. I agree that the world has changed because of cell phones, but I don’t think that these changes have made people ruder. Each generation creates its own rules and values, and the cell-phone generation is doing that. If media and entertainment were horrible and insulting, then people wouldn’t watch them. Humans are evolving, and our expectations have to evolve with technology. Some people do act like they are polite when they actually do rude things all the time. Behavior comes from people. People have to change it.

Possible Topic #1: How generations create their own values

Possible Topic #2: How behavior changes with changes in technology

After you see a movie, you ask a friend, “What did you think of it?” Your friend may praise the plot, criticize the acting, or comment on the characters’ behavior. Your friend is analyzing the film, breaking the film down into its component parts and assessing how well they work together. When you analyze a reading, you may focus on any aspect of the selection, such as the author’s fairness or accuracy, the method of presentation, the quality of the supporting evidence provided, or the intended audience. To discover ideas for analysis, try devising critical questions, using annotation, keeping a response journal, or using a reading-response worksheet.

Devise critical questions. Asking critical questions and then answering them is a useful method for analysis and for discovering ideas for a response paper. Here are three sample questions and the answers that one student wrote after reading “American Jerk.”

Can we turn the tide and find a way to return to a polite society? I think that adults emphasize politeness less than in the past. Parents and teachers hardly try to instill it in children. People no longer have to learn etiquette. To improve manners would require us to rethink how we raise and educate children.

Is technology causing people to be less civil, or is it just an excuse? Technology has changed the way that people communicate with one another. Technology makes it easier to have less personal contact with others, but it does not encourage rudeness. It’s possible to use technology and still be civil to other people.

Why are people more distracted and thoughtless now than they used to be? People have probably always been distracted and thoughtless, but today so many things clamor for our attention that it is easier than ever to be distracted. We are focused less on the people around us and more on the electronics we use throughout the day.

Use annotation. In the Guide to Active Reading earlier in this chapter, you learned to annotate as you read. Use these annotation skills to analyze and respond to a reading you are preparing to write about. As you read an essay the second time, record additional reactions that occur to you. Some students prefer to use a different color of ink to record their second set of annotations. (Refer to the sample student annotation.)

Use a reading-response worksheet. In the Guide to Active Reading above, you learned about keeping a response journal and using a Reading-Response Worksheet, like the one shown in Figure 3.6. Because it enables you to pull together so many of the elements of your response, the reading-response worksheet provides a convenient jumping off place for beginning your response essay.