Tips on Writing Reaction Papers for Directed Readings

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  • Summarize the book well enough so that you demonstrate that you have read the entire book, understand the entire book, and have thought about the entire book, AND thoroughly critique the book from a scholarly perspective.
  • Describe the book: Is it interesting, memorable, entertaining, instructive? Why?
  • Explore the major themes of the book and discuss what makes them important, and how and why they are important. Use quotations, but not extensively, from the book to support your argument. What possibilities does the book suggest? Explain. What matters does the book leave out? Explain.
  • Relate your argument to other books or authors: Support your argument for or against the author’s opinions by bringing in other authors you agree with.
  • Relate the book to larger issues: How did the book affect you? How have your opinions about the topic changed? How is the book related to your own course or personal agenda.

The bulk of your reaction paper, therefore, should concentrate on your evaluation of the way the author(s) handled the issues discussed. What is (are) the overall thesis(es) — the points of view or conclusion? What are your reactions? Did the book(s) enhance your understanding of the issues? What was your major takeaway from the book? Be as direct as possible. Remember, you are the expert. In framing your review, you should provide some information on the author(s). What are his or her relevant qualifications and background (or lack thereof) for writing on this subject? What were his or her reasons for writing this book? (Often the preface contains such information) What evidence is cited, and has new documentation become available? If so, identify the new documentation. Or, does the book present a novel interpretation based on previously available documents, or does it provide a new literary or dramatic account of a subject already treated by others? Your conclusions and assessments regarding these aspects, of course, will affect your comparative evaluations of the works. You should also consider the time during which the book was written and, if evident, the author’s values and biases. For example, in all likelihood a biography of Senator Joseph McCarthy written by a conservative Republican journalist in l954 will differ from a biography written by a neo-Marxist academic in l974.

It will be necessary to refer to specific portions of the books to illustrate your statements and conclusions, but it is generally not advisable to quote extensively from it. When reviewing more than one book, choose aspects of the subject that are sufficiently broad to cover all of them and compare the books from these particular perspectives. Do not try to make more points than can be accomplished thoroughly in your review. It is better to make a few points well than many points poorly. Once you have decided on the central points you intend to make, treat each one as a separate section of your review. Each section should explain the one point, supporting it with your own arguments and with brief examples from the book(s) under review and drawing conclusions as to the meaning and importance of the point.

Pay attention to grammar, style and punctuation. Provide explanation, context, for your observations. Remember, this paper is part of a School of Communication course, which involves communicating – in this case, writing – clearly. Clarity of writing and following grammatical and style requirements will comprise part of your grade. Common mistakes in these papers include noun-verb disagreement, noun-pronoun disagreement, dangling modifiers, misuse of quote marks (using double quote marks instead of single quote marks inside of quotation marks), wrong references to titles (book, magazine, newspaper and journal article titles are italicized; movie, song, TV program and internet site titles are put in quote marks), putting quote marks around indented quotes, which should be single-spaced, to name a few.

Your paper should conclude with your critique. Always remember that the issue is not necessarily whether you personally liked the book or agreed with every interpretation or conclusion, but whether the author has done his/her job well for all of his/her readers as a group. Refer back to your introductory paragraph(s). What is your ultimate judgment of the style, format, contents, and historical value of each book? Has each author achieved the purpose, explicit or implicit, for writing the book? Has he or she persuasively argued the thesis to your satisfaction? Why or why not? Compare the evidence cited and argumentation used to support the respective conclusions. Has the book challenged you intellectually, increasing your knowledge, raising new questions, and/or presenting the material in a novel, even provocative manner? Or does the author simply rehash what everyone already knows? Would you recommend any or all of these books, and at what level — secondary, undergraduate, graduate? What book on this subject still needs to be written?