Reading to Respond
Like summarizing, responding is a valuable academic, job, and life skill.
You will often be asked to share your ideas and perspectives, be it in a formal or an informal setting. For example, you may need to provide your reactions to a reading in a college class. At your job, your supervisor may request your response about a new project idea or the content of a letter to be sent to a client. In your personal life, a friend may ask you to respond with your ideas about how to work through a personal challenge, or you may be asked to share your opinion on a current social or political issue. As with any skill, responding to texts requires practice. Through practice, you will become more proficient and build your confidence to handle any of these tasks.
The next six chapters introduce you to response writing, provide a process you can use to respond effectively to short articles, and present guidelines for writing a response. Examples are also included. The following chapters should be read in order, as each builds on the previous chapter.
- 14: What Is a Response?
- 15: Preparing to Respond
- 16: Writing a Topic Sentence for a Response
- 17: Generating Support for Your Response
- 18: Writing a Response
- 19: Evaluating a Response
Before moving forward with these chapters, make sure you have completed the chapters on summarizing. You must ensure you have an accurate understanding of the article before responding to the ideas.
