A Good Paper

How to write a good response paper:

This course requires you to a number of reflection papers during the semester.  In many cases, the specific assignments you have are optional, although you must meet a minimum requirement. When you do take up this task, here are a few guidelines to help you do well.

Before we dive into them, however, please know that these exercises are not designed to have you repeat what you have read.  Rather, it is to use the material you have read, and the knowledge you have acquired in this course, to make a persuasive argument about the material.  

As the syllabus states, a response paper should be 3 pages to be acceptable, but I will allow up to 4 pages if you feel you have more to say.  Double-spaced.

Make sure that you read the assigned reading thoroughly and carefully.  It may help to take good notes and write down your ideas as you read.

Make sure that you address the question being asked of you (which will be posed in the Assignments section of the UB Learns page well in advance.)

You will need to have a thesis, a central point to your paper, an argument you are trying to make.  To prove your argument or your point, you will have to use evidence to persuade your viewer.  When doing so, use quotation marks and cite your source, even if it is obvious.  For example you might write for one assignment, “As he states In his letter from Birmingham, Martin Luther King believed that “the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” (King, 1963).  When you CAN be more specific with citing your sources, please do so (such as a page number or a date when they are provided.)  This may not be possible at all times, given the nature of the online sources.