response paper
Ivan001
InstructionsforResponsePaper.docxInstructions for the Response Paper
This assignment requires you to write a critical response to another student’s paper – 800 words minimum. Any paper under 800 will not be accepted for credit. That’s not a lot of space so pick your battles carefully. You may have written critical responses in other classes, but here your focus should be primarily on the ideas in your student’s paper – and nothing else. To give you an idea for what I’d like to see, I’m going to start with the downer-strategy and give you a bunch of “DON’Ts”:
· You don’t need to be giving grammar criticism. Save that for an English class. Here we’re trying to learn how to think better – that’s our focus. Your comments can possibly be a big help to the person you’re reviewing; giving them more ideas to work with, stimulating new ones, seeing other perspectives.
· Don’t MERELY give your opinion. This is not another paper YOU are writing. You want to be in dialogue with the AUTHOR’S ideas. Play on their turf. Don’t get astray in irrelevant tangents. Share your ideas but make sure that you 1) connect them in with what the author is up to and 2) defend them. Just stating that you disagree isn’t useful. Giving an argument for an objection helps IMMENSELY.
On the more positive side, here’s a couple ways to think about how to approach giving criticism. (you don’t have to follow these categories exactly, but if you’re having trouble finding things to talk about this might help):
· Identify places where clarification in the ideas needs to happen. If you’re confused, it may be your fault for misunderstanding, but most of the time the author shares the responsibility here. And regardless of the finger-pointing (which is not really the point here), your author will want to be as clear as possible and if there’s a communication breakdown, they should know about it. When sharing this kind of response be sure to include your guesses as to what they have in mind – this will really help the author know where things got off track. (Don’t make this category the entirety of your reaction!)
· When the author makes claims in their arguments, ask yourself if you think that those claims could be challenged – whether by you personally, or someone else less sympathetic to the position. If there is significant room for a challenge, indicate on what grounds someone might be suspicious of that claim or outright dispute it.
· Argument anatomy refresher: all arguments have a thesis or CONCLUSION that is being defended and PREMISES that are the claims that defend the truth of the conclusion. When looking at the arguments your author employs, ask if you could agree with all the premises and yet disagree with the conclusion.
#1 THING FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT: HAVE PATIENCE! Your paper’s author is just trying out this whole philosophy thing for the first time too, so don’t expect freaking John Stuart Mill is writing the paper you’re reviewing. BE CHARITABLE and CONSTRUCTIVE. And don’t forget that “constructive” doesn’t mean you can’t be critical. But also: “critical” doesn’t license being abusive! Keep it friendly. So basically: don’t pull the punches but throw those punches as a friend and not as an enemy. Think about how two martial artists might spar with each other for their mutual benefit and with mutual respect. This is more like that than an all-out brawl.
: )
If you are still having trouble after reading all this advice, feel free to get in contact with me about the paper. I’ve been keeping up with the paper projects and might be able to explain what’s going on and give you some direction. If you have questions for your author I can also relay anonymous messages and get you guys in contact if you both want to do that. I would LOVE to see that happen! Be in dialogue!
