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Response Essay Writing: Helpful Ideas and Tips

At one time or another, students are often required to read through a particular text or novel and then write and develop a response to them. This type of essay is referred to as a response essay. Often, students find writing this type of essay difficult since it is not like all other types of essays they are used to and it also requires some additional skills and professionalism. But it's not as difficult as it seems. Some basic tips that can help in writing this type of essay are given below.

Meaning of a Response Essay.

It is very important for us to first explain what a response essay is.

A response essay is a type of essay that involves writing a response or reaction to a particular book, article or even a TV show that you have read or seen. It requires a student to summarize the text in question and then provide a detailed reaction to such a text.

It is often very challenging for students to write a high-quality response essay especially when they are doing it for the first time. To overcome this difficulty and write a good response essay even when you are writing it for the first time, you have to understand that the response essay you are about to write requires you to express your own opinion on the text you have read.

Also, a lot of students make the mistake of mistaking the response essay to book reviews and these, in the long run, affect the way they write their response essay. You see, a response essay is quite different from a book review. A response essay focuses on critical analysis and close reading of a given element in the articles or book while book reviews give a value statement about the text in question.

Helpful Tips to Consider.

• Know your stance

After you have read through the text and you are about to start writing your essay, you need to know what you want to stand for in this text. Do you agree or disagree with the ideas of the text? What part of the text appeals to you? These are the questions that you need to answer in your response essay. You should show clearly what you think about the ideas of the text. There is no need to be shy about expressing your opinions in the response essay, although it may sound a little strange for you to use a word like “I feel” or “ I think” in your essay, these types of words are allowed to use. Since you are stating your opinion, you should do just that without being shy.

• Read and Respond

While compiling and preparing for your response essay, you need to read and understand perfectly the text you are to write about. To get the major points of the text, as you read through the text, get a pen and mark the interesting and most appealing parts of the text with your pen after you have done this, you should reread through the points you have marked and reflect on them. Try to derive meaning from them and then through this, you can then develop your thesis statement.

• Avoid Sentiment

The response essay should not be based on sentiment or hatred. Writing a response essay should be solely based on your opinion. Writing with any other motive will often lead to students insulting the writer with no clear analysis or explanation. Although it is okay for you to criticize the work you are writing on, you need to back up your feelings and opinions with concrete work from the text.

As you might have guessed, the response essay also consists of three major parts which are: Introduction, Body and The Conclusion. Each of these parts should be written differently and some basic points to consider while writing these are as follows.

Introduction

The introduction being the first part the reader will see should be very captivating. It should contain a clear summary of the whole text or work that you are writing on. Summarizing the text in the introduction will allow the reader to understand what the original article is all about and it will also make them a little curious about what you think about it.

Body

This is where you put all the points you have been thinking of. When writing the body of the essay, each of your paragraphs should state and develop a single point, support each of these points with enough evidence from the text to make it more convincing. Also, you should state how the work is related to our present-day world, or if it has helped you to understand any concept better. While doing this, be sure to link each paragraph with transition words or phrases as this will make your essay more professional and interesting to read.

Conclusion

The conclusion of the essay should be brief and straightforward. Just give a simple general review of all your ideas, but is important to avoid repeating them word for word. You can also give recommendations and reasons why you think the text is good or bad here.

Finally, once you are done with the paper, read through it again and make necessary edits on your grammar, use of wordsResponse Essay, and punctuation. Doing all these and following the tips above will help you to write a good response essay even if you are doing it for the first time.

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