5 Principles That Every Response Paper Should Have

If you are a student then you will almost certainly be tasked with writing a response paper at some time in your educational career. Whenever your teachers ask you to write for a piece of writing, movie, or a TV show, you ought to be prepared and know how to write it. You may currently think that writing a response paper is not your cup of tea, but trust me, these kinds of papers are among the easiest ones that an essay writer will ever come across during your academics.

If you do not already know about the basics of a response paper, then there is nothing to feel less about yourself. You cannot be expected by your teachers to know everything about everything. There ought to be things that you learn as you proceed in your life; so think of a response paper as one of those things.

Before we get into the more advanced level details of a response paper such as its essential elements that you cannot miss out on, let us first find out what response papers are and why they are written. In simplest words, a response paper is a form of an opinion or reaction that you give on a creative piece such as a poem, song, movie, or art etcetera.

A response paper generally has two parts which include an overview of the creative piece that you will write a response on, along with your personal opinion or reaction to it.

Now that you know what a response paper is, you may be thinking that it is as easy as a pie, since all you need to do is to give your opinion. Well, you are somewhat correct but not entirely. You ought to be careful of its essential components that cannot be missed if you want to ace your paper. Learning about those elements will probably make you a good essay writer and make things a lot easier for you. So, without any further ado, let’s dive into the main theme of this article.

Essentials of a Response Paper

Below are the five essentials that every response paper must-have. Without them, you may not be able to achieve a full grade for your essay.

Clear thesis statements

Although a clear and concise thesis statement is required for almost all types of essays, a response or reaction paper is incomplete without it. A response paper that lacks a thesis statement will never be able to comprehend the essay writer’s opinion on the paper and might make incorrect assumptions related to it.

A little tip that I can give you is to come up with a rough idea of your thesis at the start but refine it once you are done writing your essay. When I used to Write my essay, I would always use this technique and it allowed me to compose a thesis statement that actually matched my paper. I am sure, this technique would help you too.

An appropriate tone

The tone of a response paper needs to be appropriate i.e., scholarly tone. Most students make the mistake of using a dull/boring or a little too personal tone that makes the paper sound biased. So, it is always advised that you set a tone that conveys your opinion to the audience in a professional way, rather than making it sound like a personal email. I understand that a response paper is meant to give your opinion, but that opinion must look scholarly as well to have any worth.

A coherent structure

The structure of a response paper is similar to other types of essays as it starts from an introduction, is followed by the body of the paper, and ends at the conclusion. However, the paper must always provide an overview of the creative piece that is under analysis before moving onto the “main” part of the paper. Also, the overall structure should seem coherent so the readers could easily comprehend it.

Evidence to back your opinion

Like every other essay, you cannot miss appropriate evidence to back your opinion in the response paper. A common misconception about response papers is that it should entirely be the writer’s opinion, whether it is logical or not, but that is actually not the case. Every opinion that you give must be backed up by a solid piece of evidence, otherwise your paper might lose its credibility.

It is suggested that you find credible sources as evidence such as books, scholarly articles, or newspapers. If you are not good at researching information, you can always resort to the option of asking for help from an essay writing service. These services are widely available on the internet and their professional experience is adequate to research good sources for you that can add to the credibility of your paper.

Use of direct quotes

Using direct quotes from the piece of writing that you are writing a response paper on may not be mandatory, but it certainly is essential to enhance the weightage of your essay. Teachers and professors usually look for direct quotes in response to the papers of their students as it shows that they actually read/saw the creative piece before giving their opinion.

I am hopeful that this guide will help you when you will sit to write a response paper. If you follow the instructions correctly, I am confident that you will get good grades.