Reading Response Guidelines

Responses are due via email 3 hours before the class where we read the text to which they respond (i.e., 9:30 am for 12:30-1:45 class, or 12:30pm for 3:30-4:45).  You may turn in as many, or as few, responses as you choose. Responses will be graded on a 0-3 point scale.  

Formatting:

  • 300-600 words

  • Double spaced

  • 1” margins

  • Fonts: Times New Roman, Calibri, Cambria, or Arial

  • The response title should be the title of the article you are reading followed by the word ‘response’

  • Your name should be centered directly under the title.

  • Email to me at josh.keton@gmail.com in .pdf format.

  • Do not share a Google Drive document with me…email me the document only as a file attachment.

  • Format the file name in the following fashion:

    • LastName-FirstName-Course Abbreviation (e.g., PHILO 102 or POLSC 31754)-Response-DDMMM (where DD is the day, and MMM is the first three letters of the month of the class meeting which will be about the reading to which you are responding)

    • E.g., Keton-Josh-PHILO 246-Response-10SEP, Doe-Jane-POLSC31754-Response-01NOV, etc.

All citations of the article being responded to should give the page number of the reference in parentheses.  There is no need to include bibliographical information.

You should not cite any other texts (including other class readings) in a reading response, though you might mention other readings or writers by name, if absolutely necessary. Try to engage each piece directly and not mediate your response through the work of others.

A reading response can take one of several formats, below is a non-exhaustive list and description of some such formats:

Engaging a single argument in detail:

Such a reading response attempts to take a piece of a larger paper and engage it in detail.  For instance, perhaps you are convinced by Singer’s argument overall, but think that the analogy between saving distant strangers from starvation and pulling a baby out of a fountain is faulty.  You might spend a page or two explaining why you think this analogy fails—i.e., what is different between saving people from starvation and saving people from drowning.  Or, to take a different example, perhaps you think Socrates was basically right about a duty to obey the law, but wrong that disobedience in his particular case or perhaps other cases, such as the Civil Rights Movement, was a threat to the functioning of a legal system.

Arguing against the main thesis of the paper:

Unlike the previous type of response, you might make this response when you fully disagree with the reading.  This is more difficult to pull off effectively in a reading response—after all, if it took Singer several thousand words to make his argument it seems unlikely you will be able to sink it in 300-600 words.  The trick is to give reasons why you think the author you are responding to is wrong without going into too much detail.  It might be helpful to consider such a response as if it were the abstract, introduction or even conclusion of a longer paper.

Extending an argument:

Hopefully you will occasionally think an article is pretty good and not have much critical to say about it.  In this case you might think that the argument in the article extends further than the original author—say that Singer’s argument applies not just to starvation but to death by easily preventable disease, or issues connected to climate change.  Spending a page or two explaining why is a valuable exercise.

Describing a confusion or raising a question:

Sometimes a particular part of a paper will be confusing, and/or ambiguous.  It is a completely acceptable exercise to simply indicate that the meaning or import of a certain part of an article can be called into question.  It is important when doing so to try to understand what the author is saying and to treat the author’s work as charitably as possible.  For example, if you think there are two ways to take something the author said and one is better than the other, assume the author meant the better one.  Describing that the author can be taken to mean the two different things and which is better and why is a completely appropriate subject for a reading response.