A critical response should "respond" (pay close attention) to a particular text or texts, and it should do so "critically," in other words, analytically; the intent is to explore a theme that you think the text(s) reveals and to clarify something that is complex or profound or disturbing or in some other way significant.

The key to an outstanding essay probably depends on your following a few general guidelines:

1. In academic writing, one of the goals is to offer an interpretation or argument that pulls together different sources. If you are asked to write a critical response on more than one text, the critical task involves synthesis—think in terms of connections between the writers, e.g., how they share certain assumptions or beliefs, as well as what distinguishes their theories or arguments or methods. If you're writing about just one writer, think about the the connections among the writer's texts you are considering.

2. It's helpful to provide a brief overview of the author's arguments, the main points and the author's purpose.  You should not merely summarize the plot or spend an inordinate amount of time paraphrasing the literal meaning, but it is essential that you provide your reader with your sense of what the broad purpose of the text is.  Introduce the specific text you're talking about, put the thesis or main point(s) into your own words, and when you're tracing the author's line of reasoning, indicate where you are in the text.  Note the difference between this approach and a typical research paper assignment, where you are encouraged to drop in as many names or quotations as you can, noting authors in parenthetical citations only.  In a critical response (or take-home essay), you must address the author's ideas specifically and analytically (i.e., explaining significance, answering implied how/why questions). NOTE: Always give the author's full name the first time you refer to her or him; after that, use the last name.

3. Since this is a response to a specific text(s), you should plan on quoting.  Briefly.  The biggest mistake students make is to quote excessively—quotations that are several sentences long, or short quotes strung together with only a few of your own words linking them.  Some people say that 15% quotation and 85% your analysis is a good ratio, some say 25% to 75%—these are suggestions only, but they let you know that if you've got 2 pages of quotations in a 4-page paper, you're probably in trouble.

Since you are referring to assigned texts, there is no need for a bibliography.  I do, however, expect to see authors' names and titles of their work when you introduce them.  TITLES: Large things, like books, and films are underlined or italicized; small things, like articles, stories, essays, and poems, are quoted. Once it's clear which writer/essay you're referring to, you don't need to keep typing in the last name in your parenthetical citations.  This is academic convention, and you should consult a good handbook if you've never been introduced to this format.  (Note: always put pages numbers in parentheses, NEVER clog up your otherwise perfectly good sentence with pages numbers, as in this example: On page 56 the author claims that . . . . ) Basically, it works like this:

  A.  In A Room ofOne's Own, Virginia Woolf argues that "Intellectual freedom depends upon material things" (108).

• This is exactly how a quotation should look when the name of the author is either named in the sentence or is already clearly established.  No name in the parenthetical citation, no "p," just the page number, period outside the quotation mark.  Note:  normally, when you're not doing parenthetical citations, commas and periods always go inside quotation marks, like "this," "That," and "The Other."

•   In this instance the name is needed (as long as it's not already apparent in the context of the paragraph) and the citation is at the end of the sentence.

•   Like this:  The academic convention is to find the "core phrase or word" of a sentence rather than quoting the entire sentence (Olmsted 2).

• A long quote is one that simply can't be reduced to a phrase because it is all so pertinent and perfectly expressed that to paraphrase any part of it would be to lose important meaning. Still the same principle of balance applies. Long quotations do not replace your careful anaylsis and interpretation. And that's a fact.  (Olmsted 329)

F. Inserting your words in a quotation: use brackets not parentheses, "like this, when you're, like Woolf, employing [inserting] your own words in a quotation" (45).

G. Ellipses: these are used ONLY when you leave out the middle of a quoted passage, not at the beginning or end. When you leave out words, insert the ellipses in brackets, like this----[ . . . ]-----so that the reader knows that the ellipses are yours not the author's.

4.  Avoid sweeping generalizations.  No matter what you're writing, but especially in academic writing, you must support your claims.  Take care that you don't "trash" an entire text because it says one thing you find annoying on page 8.  That's where understanding the "big picture" is so important.  Recognizing the weaknesses of a writer's argument is crucial to critical reading, but even more important is understanding what the writer is trying to say.  What is her or his attitude?  What are you being asked to believe or to challenge or to see in a new way?  Where is the writer most effective?  Least effective?  Learn to listen to what a writer is trying to communicate, and learn to listen to what your own reaction is telling  you.

5. After you get your ideas down, spend some time looking at your paragraphs.  Are they well developed (or do you have a series of 3-sentence paragraphs or just two or three mega-blocks)?  Do you have a good thesis, one that you're still working on by the time you get to the end of the paper?  Is your introduction interesting and does it give your reader a sense of where you're going?

Another formula that student writers can get addicted to is the five-paragraph theme, where your introduction tells the reader what the essay is about and the conclusion tells the reader what the essay was about. This is tiresome, except in instances where the material is so complicated that the reader really does have to hear it over and over. Much better than the mere recital of your main points, conclusions that look beyond summarizing—to suggest further implications and applications of your ideas, or to examine your own reaction to a complex issue, or to offer a final musing about the future, or in some other way, to leave your reader challenged or inspired by something the essay hasn't already drummed in—are much stronger, more interesting.

You may also go to Dr. Karen Schneider's hand-outs, which offer good suggestions for writing, click here.