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Module 2: Personal Response

What is Personal Response?

Personal Response Essay is a type of writing in which you can express your feelings and ideas in

response to a prompt assigned by your professor. It is also called critical response, reaction, or

reflection paper.

A prompt can be a brief statement or key image that reveals the main topic/idea of the issue.

Statement type

For example, your geography professor can give you a prompt like below.

“The best way to solve the issue of global warming is to increase carbon tax globally.”

Q: What is your opinion on this statement from the Canadian government?

Image type

Your sociology professor can provide you with an image as a prompt like below.

Q: What ideas or impressions does this photo below suggest to you?

Homelessness (Source from Huffington Post)

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Depending on the course, the kinds of prompts assigned could be varied from the following:

• real life situations mentioned in a newspaper or on TV

• speech done by well-known experts or politicians

• professor’s lecture

• documentary videos or movies

• literature: short fiction, poetry, drama, noble, play, etc.

The Personal Response Essay is often used in an informal way as well.

For example, some professors will require you to express your opinions and insight casually on a given

prompt through:

1) an Informal weekly assignment

2) a reading journal

3) an online forum

4) a part of a book review

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Characteristics of the Personal Response Essay

1) A DIRECT REACTION to what you read or hear: To present your opinions and ideas on your topic

clearly, you need to describe the situation(s) where you got inspired or unpleased from the

reading or video/audio given by your professor in depth, and respond to it directly.

2) EXPLORATIVE: It is NOT argumentative- taking a side or asserting a strong opinion. It is

discovering what went well or wrong, and then expressing your views.

3) LOGICAL and SPECIFIC: When you want to say, “I agree or disagree with the idea” or “It is easy

to understand”, you need to mention WHAT you exactly agree/disagree with or the reason that

you can easily understand the situation. DO NOT assume that readers know about what you

read or hear exactly.

4) PERSONAL, but ACADEMIC: Because your life experience and cultural

background/values/beliefs are different, your ideas and opinions can be subjective. However,

you need to keep using formal language. Due to the nature of this essay type, you can use 1st

person pronouns: “I”, “my”, and “me”. However, avoid using 2nd person pronouns: “You”,

“your”, “we”, and “our”.

[NOTE]: About academic writing style, please review Academic Tone in Module 1.

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Four Types of Personal Response

Let’s imagine that you are assigned to write one personal response paper and your professor has given a prompt, “Forced deportation of Chinese immigrants in BC, Canada due to the denial of assimilation” with this photo on the left.

This archived newspaper, Canadian Illustrated News demonstrates how Chinese immigrants were treated by white Canadian citizens in 1879. Based on the prompt, what impression and ideas does this photo suggest to you?

There are FOUR ways that you can express your responses to the prompt.

[Source from the Canadian Encyclopedia]

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1) Emotional Response In emotional responses, you can express your feelings such as anger, encouragement, discouragement, disappointment, compassion, empathy, etc. Remember that when you show your feelings and emotions, you always need to provide clear reasons to support them in depth.

For example, thinking about the prompt and photo above, you may want to express your emotions:

• “I am angry about this Canadian, Amor De Cosmos because …...” • “I am disappointed at the way that Canada treated Chinese immigrants because ......”.

2) Intellectual Response In intellectual responses, you can express your thoughts and opinions such as agreement and disagreement of the prompt. Also, you can discuss or reflect on a prompt from your own point of view. Remember that when you show your thoughts and opinions, you always need to provide clear reasons to support them in depth.

For example,

• “I disagree with the idea of forced deportation because Chinese immigrants contributed to Canada tremendously at that time. Also, I believe everyone has a right to pursue maintaining their own culture in a foreign country to some degree”

• “In my opinion, Canada should have not forced Chinese immigrants to go back to their country without any reasonable reasons. What the Canadian government and white citizens did to them was unfair and racist against innocent Asian immigrants.”

Personal Response

Emotional

Comparative

Personal experiences

Intellectual

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3) Personal Experience Based on a prompt, you can ask yourself:

• Direct experience: “Do I have a similar experience?” • Indirect experience: “Do I know or heard about someone who has experienced the same event

from family, friends or colleagues?” For example,

• Direct experience: “In my experience, I used to live in a rural area far from Seoul, Korea, but one day, the Korean government decided to build a railway right across my neighborhood. Without proper compensation, I was ordered to move out of my home within a month. Even though the purpose of moving out is different from Chinese immigrants’ situation, I can feel their frustration on the unfair decision of the Canadian government.”

4) Cross-Cultural Comparison A prompt often leads you to discuss the similarities or differences happening in different cultures such as Eastern and Western cultures. That is, some cultures share a very similar thought or value, while others do not.

For example,

• “When Korea was colonized by Japan, Korean citizens were forced to assimilate into Japanese culture. The Korean citizens were physically abused when they did not speak Japanese and follow Japanese rules. Also, some of them were forced to move to Japan for military purposes. This situation is partly similar to what Chinese immigrants experienced in Canada because…...”

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How to Introduce Evidence?

There are TWO ways that you can introduce your evidence: 1) descriptions and 2) quotations.

1) Descriptions When you use primary sources such as artifacts, photos, and video recordings as your evidence, you need to describe:

• the appearance of the artifacts • the images/objects/people/scenery on the photos • events/scenes/people’s emotions, body language, verbal expressions, or interactions with

others displayed on the videos.

At the end of your description, do NOT forget to indicate an in-text citation.

e.g.)

In this photo presented in Canada Libre, one lady wearing a white- long dress is standing in front of one house and pointing out a large sign placed on the top of the front side of the house. The sign highlights “JAPS KEEP MOVING” with an additional warning, “This is A WHITE MAN’S NEIGHBORHOOD” (anonymous, n.d.).

BC’s Japanese Internment Camps (Source from Canada Libre)

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2) Quotations

When can you use quotations? You can use quotations when somebody’s idea or speech in your source has a powerful meaning/message. Thus, you can directly quote what the person stated or highlighted in the source with quotation marks with an in-text citation.

In both primary and secondary sources, you may want to directly quote:

• eyewitness testimony • expert testimony • agreement or disagreement from others such as news reporters, experts, and scholars. • research results from scholarly journal articles • statistics/data • ……

Remember!

• At the end of your quotation, do NOT forget to indicate an in-text citation. • Even if you notice some grammatical errors or spelling mistakes in your source, do NOT correct

them. You need to present your quotations in the same way that the information appears in the source.

• Provide the context of your evidence fully. If you miss introducing the context of your evidence (i.e. quoted information), it is hard for readers to understand the meaning of your evidence clearly.

• You cannot copy more than 3 lines or 40 words. If your quotes are too long, quote short phrases or expressions only, and then paraphrase the rest of the information in your own words. We call this way a mixed quotation.

Three Basic Ways of Quotations

In Module 1, you learned how to quote and how to indicate a proper citation like below. The example below clearly indicates quotation marks for copied information and a proper in-text citation with the author’s last name, publication year, and a paragraph number right after the end of the quotation.

CBC News report highlights, “Japanese-Canadians in B.C. were labelled as enemy aliens during the Second World War despite many of them having lived in Canada for generations” (Pawson, 2017, para. 8).

In this example, we can clearly understand that Pawson wrote this information in 2017 via CBC News report. Readers can find this quote in the 8th paragraph of the newspaper.

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There are three more ways that you can present your evidence with direct quotations like below. Before you mention your quoted evidence, you need to introduce who the writer is and the writer’s credibility. In this case, the publication year in brackets appears right after the author’s last name, and then a page or paragraph number in brackets appears after the second quotation mark.

1)

According to ____________ (Year), (author’s LAST name/organization)

a (credibility/authority) “Quoted sentences” (p. #).

According to Pawson (2017), a CBC News reporter in Vancouver, “Japanese-Canadians in B.C. were labelled as enemy aliens during the Second World War despite many of them having lived in Canada for generations” (para. 8).

2)

As ____________ (Year), (author’s LAST name/organization)

who/which is (credibility/authority),

reporting verb “Quoted sentences” (p. #).

As Pawson (2017), who is a CBC News reporter in Vancouver, explains, “Japanese-Canadians in B.C. were labelled as enemy aliens during the Second World War despite many of them having lived in Canada for generations” (para. 8).

3)

____________ (Year), (author’s LAST name/organization)

who/which is (credibility/authority),

reporting verb “Quoted sentences” (p. #).

Pawson (2017), who is a CBC News reporter in Vancouver, declares, “Japanese-Canadians in B.C. were labelled as enemy aliens during the Second World War despite many of them having lived in Canada for generations” (para. 8).

[Source: B.C. government recognizes 56 historic Japanese-Canadian places published by CBC News]

[NOTE]: For more reporting verbs, please check Appendix A.

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[Appendix A]: Useful VERBS More useful VERBS for introducing/integrating quotations, paraphrases, and summaries.

Acknowledge Emphasize Recognize Agree Endeavors to Refute Analyze Establish Reject Argue Estimate Remark Ask Explain Report Assert Express Reveal Balance Find Signal begin Focus on Specify Believe Grant Speculate Claim Illustrate State Comment Imply Suggest Compare Indicate Think Complain Inform Write Concede Insist Conclude Introduce Confirm Maintain Connect Mean Consider Negate Contend Note Contradict Notice Contrast Observe Declare Offer Demonstrate Organize Deny Point out Describe Prepare Develop Promise Discuss Prove Distinguish between… and … Question

[NOTE]: • If you do not know some verbs mentioned in the chart above, write their meanings in your first

language. • Print out this page and put it on the wall of your study room. You will probably want to use

some useful verbs for your essays.

[Source]: Adapted from Simon & Schuster Handbook for Writers (4th ed.) written by Troyka, L. Q., & Jesse, D. (2006).

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Appendix B: TRANSITION words/phrases • The effective use of transition words helps readers to comprehend a mutual relation between

sentences, between “evidence” and “your supportive explanation/discussion”, or between paragraphs to maintain the main idea of your essay.

• Transition words can be used in various ways, so you need to discern which transition could be suitable to keep your ideas coherent.

• Transition words are indicated with a comma before a full sentence that contains subject, verb, and object (or complement). In each column below, + SVO means a full sentence (i.e. a clause) should appear after each transition expression with a comma.

o S: Subject o V: Verb o O: Object

To restate your ‘assertion’ in depth (Explanation sentence) In other words, In more detail, To be specific, + SVO Namely, In particular, More specifically, To restate your evidence in depth (Discussion sentences) In other words, Namely, Clearly, Clearly, then, + SVO To be clear, With this in mind, To put it concretely, To explain or discuss your evidence (Discussion Sentences) This means/indicates/illustrates/demonstrates that In this occasion, + SVO In this situation, In this case,

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To add more specific supporting details (evidence) Moreover, In addition to , In addition, Additionally, For example, + SVO For instance, Particularly, Furthermore, As an illustration, Likewise, Similarly, Coupled with , To compare To contrast In comparison with , On the other hand, Compared to , However, Likewise, +SVO Nevertheless, Similarly, On the contrary, In the same way, In contrast, + SVO

Instead, Conversely, Although S1+V1,

Even though S1+V1, To reveal results or conclude the paragraph or To conclude your essay

[NOTE]:

 Again, print out this page and put it on the wall of your study room. You will probably want to use some useful transition words for your essays.

As a result, In conclusion, As a consequence, All in all, Consequently, In brief, For this reason, In short, Eventually, + SVO In summary, + SVO Finally, On the whole, In the end, To put it briefly, Therefore, To summarize, Thus, To sum up, Hence, Accordingly,