Responses

Nature of a response to a reading

Responses to a text require the following items:

  • Date assignment is due and title of your response
  • Name of the author
  • Title of the text
  • Source of the text
  • Link to the text if online
  • Audience of the text
  • Purpose, or main argument, of the text
  • Context of the text
  • A quotation or a paraphrase of the part of the text to which you are responding
  • Your response (that is, your opinion) to the quotation or paraphrase

The first 8 items should be in one paragraph, although you can separate a quotation out in its own paragraph, and the last item should be in a separate paragraph.


Example of a response to a reading

February 5, 2008. Response to Mungers' article "High IQ"
Writing to people interested in research on how the human brain works, David and Greta Munger report almost daily in their blog Cognitive Daily on articles on in peer-reviewed journals on cognition. About two years ago, David Munger wrote the post High IQ: Not as good for you as you thought. This post reported on research by Angela Duckworth and Martin Seligman, professors at the Positive Psychology Center of the University of Pennsylvania, that indicated that self-discipline was much more important that IQ in academic achievement. According to the study,

 

Most impressive was the whopping .67 correlation between self-discipline and final GPA, compared to a .32 correlation for IQ.

They're talking about the self-discipline needed to study and do what is necessary to learn the material in their classes. Or, in other words, practice makes perfect, and the more one practices, the more perfect one becames. That makes sense. We wouldn't expect an Olympic athlete who wants to win a medal not to put in lots of hours of practice and work-outs. Why would we think differently about academic achievement?

©2007-2008 Charles Nelson