Format:           One page; no more than one page; no less than one page (which is about 325-400 words).

Typed

                                    Times New Roman, 12pt font, 1 inch margins

                                    Double spaced

No extra line spacing before or after paragraphs

Number and type of paper, course name, and your name in the header (use this document as a template)

Avoid:             Rhetorical questions, “etc.,” contractions, “valid point,” “that being said,” “in my opinion,” informal fallacies

                        You may NOT use external sources

                        You MUST cite all quotations

Tips:                Get to the point – these are very short assignments, spending a paragraph giving an introduction is a waste of space. Focus your thought – target the key concept or idea that you are trying to discuss in the response. Ignore extraneous information. Be clear. Be concise. Stay on target. Replace my name with your name. I do not need a title. The brackets [ ] indicate content that you should pay attention to but are not, themselves, necessary in your paper.

Submission:     Response papers are submitted in hard-copy at the beginning of class on the day they are due. In addition, papers will be submitted electronically to D2L so that they can be checked by Turnitin®.

Response Types

Type A: What is the point of the reading?

            Tell me the thesis. Explain the general purpose of the reading. This is not a synopsis. The goal of this assignment is for you to distill the key concept of the reading into a digestible form; think of it is trying to explain the reading to an ideal listener. That listener will want to know what the author is going on about, the point and purpose of that reading. Tell me what the author trying to say. It is your job to make that clear. This assignment is, in essence, writing an abstract for the essay.

Type B: What is the argument?

            Show the premises of the argument. This is not a bullet list. Every good argument has premises. The reading will have an argument of some kind. The goal is to show the premises of the argument. Show the steps that the author makes in presenting his or her position. The difficulty of this assignment is identifying those premises that are primary. There may be sub-arguments or responses to objections contained within the reading, look beyond those to find the key elements of the argument. Beyond simply identifying the premises, you must explain (even if briefly) how we should understand that premise or what it means. One must know what the essay is about in order to be able to accurately identify the argument.

Type C: What is the most important claim?

            You must focus our attention on the important claim. An author uses an argument to support the thesis but in doing so, some claim stands out as being strategically more significant than the others; it is the foundation upon which the rest of the argument rests. What is the most important claim made by the author? The goal of this assignment is for you to identify which claim is most valuable to the argument. Imagine this as the lynch-pin to the argument, that claim made by the author about which the rest of the discussion hinges. This is almost always one of the premises but it need not be. You must not only identify this key claim but you must defend it as being most central. You must know what the essay is about and must have accurately identified the argument in order to find the most important claim; to this end you must also clearly identify the author’s thesis/conclusion before you name the most important claim. Let the reader know what conclusion you think this most important claim supports. Note: the thesis is not appropriate as an answer to this question.

Type D: Which claim is false?

            Attack the target. The key to understanding any argument is identifying its weakness. The goal of this assignment is to object to the author’s argument. A good argument is both valid and sound. A valid argument is one in which the conclusion follows with necessity from the premises. A sound argument is one which is valid and which has all true premises. This means that in order to object to an argument you must show either that the conclusion does not follow or that one of the premises is false (note: some argument forms are not linear – showing some premises to be false does not successfully deny the argument). The difficulty with this assignment is not with identifying the point at which to object but rather with supporting your objection, showing that your objection is on target and powerful. One must understand the author’s position, have accurately identified the argument, and found the most important claim in order to object successfully. A good objection is more than a mere denial of some claim or the conclusion; it shows the claim or conclusion to be false.

Type E: What is the most important thing?

            Identify the morally relevant fact. If there is more than one morally relevant fact then identify the overriding moral fact. Ethical theories rely on a conception of “the good” in order to assess right and wrong. In making a moral judgment we must, therefore, identify which features are important to consider while making our assessment. There are many facts for any situation but only some of those facts are morally relevant. This assignment asks you to identify the [most] morally relevant fact. You must then show how this fact is important to our assessment of right and wrong in this situation.