the death of real news

The purpose of writing a response paper is to encourage students to actively read and evaluate selected articles. While it is possible to read an article just once and gain an understanding of the main idea, much of the depth and nuance of the article will only be discovered after multiple readings. Moreover, your grasp of the ideas and concepts presented in the article will remain superficial until you apply those ideas and concepts in your own writing.

The first step in writing a good response paper is to actively read the article assigned. Active reading means consciously identifying the thesis, purpose, audience, and tone. Next, it might help to construct an outline or graphic organizer that will help you visualize the assertions and the evidence supporting those assertions. Once you have a firm understanding of the ideas and issue present, start formulating your response by asking questions:

Do I disagree with a point being made?
Can I think of additional examples or evidence that support or refute the author’s claims?
What are other people saying about this topic?
Can I connect something in the article to my own personal experience?
Can I apply the ideas presented in the article to some other subject?

A critical response should begin with a summary of the article that you’ve chosen. Be sure to accurately represent the ideas and arguments form the source. Summarizing is part of introducing your reader to the conversation, the “they say” from your reading. Next you will begin your response, usually with a statement of agreement or disagreemnt, followed your reasons, examples and evidence. Remember that the purpose of a critical response paper is to add your own voice to the mix, to join the conversation. I want to read your reactions,your interpretations and your opinions. Take this opportunity to develop your own voice.

In evaluating this essay, there are a few specific things I will be looking for.

First, have you understood your chosen article? You can demonstrate this by accurately summarizing or paraphrasing the main ideas of the article somewhere near the beginning of your essay.

Second, have you provided your own ideas and opinions? Academic writing is based on making arguments. In this essay you should take a clear stand (referred to as a thesis, claim or main idea) and support that stand with reasons and evidence. You can approach your response in three ways.
1. Agree: “I agree and can give you additional reasons and examples.”
2. Disagree: “I disagree and will tell you why the author is mistaken.”
3. Middle ground, but still specific: “Although I agree with _______, I do not accept that ______.”

Third, have you woven important quotations into your response? I want to see that you can identify and quote important ideas in the source text. I also want to see that you can properly introduce and contextualize these quotations as described in ” The Art of Quoting” (reading assignment 3).

Finally, have you properly identified your sources? Any time you paraphrase, summarize or quote, you need an in-text citation with a corresponding works cited entry. You should follow MLA format in making these citations. For this essay you might have only a single source on your works cited page (your chosen article); that’s fine. If you include other sources (which is usually a good idea) then those will also be included.