Source: How to Write a Reaction Paper.

Retrieved September 23, 2020, from

https://www.aresearchguide.com/write-
reaction-paper.html

How to Write a Reaction Paper

Reaction Paper – Meaning of a Term
Beside the definition of a reaction paper, many scholars find it hard to understand its
meaning even though they come across this paper a few times in their career. It is true
that for every action there is always a reaction and the same does apply to reading.
When you are asked to write a reaction paper, you should not take it as being difficult at
all because the examiner is just trying to test your ability to review the work of other
authors and give personal opinions that are sensitive to the subject.

You may be asked to write a reaction paper indirectly, and you have to get the intention
of the examiner fast. A good example is that you may be asked to give a critique about
a certain subject, and this would constitute a reaction paper, or to write a review about a
literature book; it also falls into the same group.

A reaction paper is mainly based on response towards certain deeds in a story. Before
getting to the reaction paper, one has to analyze the subject under investigation and
acquire all the useful information before providing a critique on the matter.

The key thing in writing a reaction paper is giving an opinion on a subject and
supporting your statement relevantly to the satisfaction of whoever would be reading
your work. Let the reader be convinced that you are right and go by your opinion on the
matter. A reaction paper usually has two audiences, the first audience is the readers of
your work and the second one is the referees who choose the appropriate articles to
post. In most cases, reaction papers might be used in the future for references by other
authors, and therefore you should come up with clear content.
 Having troubles with reaction paper?
Meet all your deadlines with the help of professional writers
Place order 7 minutes
Choose writer 2 minutes
Receive paper always on time
RECEIVE PAPER IN 3 HOURS
*EduBirdie as a Premium Partner was chosen among 50+ writing services by our Customer Satisfaction Team.

How to start a reaction paper

Some of the questions to ask yourself before you start a reaction paper include “what is
my feeling about the intention of the writer of the book I am reviewing?” You have to
understand the main objective of the author and know the feeling about it.

The start of any essay determines the score of the piece when grading it. If you go
through various samples of reaction papers you will find out that the following guide is
useful for starting your work:

 The context – while starting your writing you should first introduce the reader to
the topic through a small background story on this theme. The reader should be
able to understand it so that when you begin giving your opinions, they are not
left hanging.
 The need – your readers should see the need for your opinion on the book or
movie you are writing about, so you have a task of creating suspense to attract
them to your work. You can do this by stating the significance of your opinion and
how it impacts the lives of others.
 Thesis statement – you have to include a thesis statement at the beginning of
your writing. The thesis constitutes a summary of the piece you are reacting to,
the major points of it and the contradiction in opinions for different people.
 Details of the book – while writing about a book or a movie you have to introduce
it to the reader by giving the name of the author and what the book is about. If it
is a movie, you have to give the name of the movie and the characters to
familiarize your reader with the piece. You also have to state the main objective
of the movie or book that you are writing about in the introduction.

Reaction paper outline

The common topics that you might be asked to write about is a literature book or a
movie. Most students are usually asked to prepare a critique for a movie because, in the
modern world, this is one of the trending entertainment resources that most people are
fond of watching. Movies are influential to many people, and utilized to pass their
information to the audience.
To come up with great content for your movie or book analysis, you have to:

– Watch a movie and note down the main points in the episodes. If it is a book, you
have to reread it and get all the themes found in the story before you can start
complementing on it.

– After reading/watching the piece, the next step is evaluating the story and figuring out
the needs of the paper. You have to get back to the instructions given by your examiner.
You may be asked to react to a specific part of the story, and you have to center your
opinions to that section, so the instructions of the examiner are very key because your
paper must reflect the question. If you are asked to write on a specific part, then you will
need to quote a sentence or theme of that region and relate it to the purpose of the
author. There are two types of reactions you might be asked to write by your teacher.

First, you may be asked to give personal opinions concerning a certain theme in a book.
In this case, the opinions that you give should be centered on your personal experience
and the knowledge you have on the topic. The second option is that you might be asked
to write about the opinion of the author for the literature resource allocated. In this case,
you will have to major your points on what the author was thinking concerning the idea
and not your own opinions. You are restricted to talk about the theme depending on
how it is brought up in the book.

After understanding the essence of the question, you have to reread the book and note
the information that would be useful for your content. It is good to repeat this several
times so that you can have all the story at your fingertips and it would help you to avoid
writing the ideas that are not evident in the source given.

Writing a reaction paper is mainly based on how you feel or think about something. After
reading through the paper, you should annotate the text so that you do not miss any
essential information.

Explain the personal opinion about the piece and illustrate using evidence from credible
sources. In your explanation, be certain to include examples to act as a backup to your
statement.

We also know that some students experience difficulties with writing some particular
kinds of papers. Use the best essay writing services to get help, if that’s the case.
Premium Partner
From $18.00 per page
4,8 / 5
GET HELP

Recommended Service
From $13.90 per page
4,5 / 5
GET HELP

From $20.00 per page
4,4 / 5
GET HELP
* All Partners were chosen among 50+ writing services by our Customer Satisfaction Team

Format of reaction paper

A reaction paper adopts different formats depending on the instructions given. A
reaction paper is divided into several parts. To organize your work, you have to
understand every part of the essay and what it entails. In a reaction paper, just like in
any other essay format, there is the introduction, the body, and the conclusion. Besides
the three main parts, a reaction paper constitutes the citation list.

1. The introduction – the introduction is the face of your paper and therefore as a
writer you have to make sure that it looks attractive and increases the urgency of
the reader to proceed to your body paragraphs. In the introduction, you have to
give a small description of the author and the main problems and ideas on the
story. It should not be too long, as it will be boring to the reader; a good
introduction should have three to four sentences. Immediately after the
introduction, you should write a thesis statement which should be clear and brief.
 2. The body is the main section, where all the ideas for your essay are explained. In
your body paragraphs, you should start each one with a topic sentence. The
topic sentence should reflect the idea to be described in the section. You should
include appropriate sources to back up your opinions. In the body, you can add
theoretical evidence to support your statement.
3. The conclusion – in writing your conclusion you should link your thesis statement
with a summary of the ideas in the body paragraphs. A good way of encrypting
your conclusion is by touching on the major points in summary then wrapping up
everything by clarifying your opinion.
4. List of citations – while writing a reaction paper you have to include the citation
for the sources you have used within your paper. The sources used should be
credible and scholarly so that they can persuade the reader.

Useful information: What does a research paper look like?

Examples of reaction papers

To advance your skills in writing a reaction paper, you have to go through various
samples. When you read and analyze them, you can be able to note the common
mistakes made by writers and avoid them in your work. There are many reaction paper
topics that one may be asked to write on, such as movies and novels. Most of papers
samples are found in articles, journals, magazines and even educational websites. By
going through various examples, you get exposed to different topics, and this improves
your knowledge so that you cannot be taken aback when given any of them.

However, if you need your own unique paper, we suggest getting help from academic
writing platform:

GET WRITING HELP

 

Source: McCombes, S. (2020, March 28). How to Synthesize Written Information from
Multiple Sources. Retrieved September 23, 2020,
fromhttps://www.simplypsychology.org/synthesising.html

How to Synthesize Written

Information from Multiple Sources
By Shona McCombes, published March 28, 2020
When you write a literature review or essay, you have to go beyond just summarizing
the articles you’ve read – you need to synthesize the literature to show how it all fits
together (and how your own research fits in).
Synthesizing simply means combining. Instead of summarizing the main points of each
source in turn, you put together the ideas and findings of multiple sources in order to
make an overall point.
At the most basic level, this involves looking for similarities and differences between
your sources. Your synthesis should show the reader where the sources overlap and
where they diverge.
Unsynthesized Example
Franz (2008) studied undergraduate online students. He looked at 17 females and 18
males and found that none of them liked APA. According to Franz, the evidence
suggested that all students are reluctant to learn citations style. Perez (2010) also
studies undergraduate students. She looked at 42 females and 50 males and found that
males were significantly more inclined to use citation software (p < .05). Findings
suggest that females might graduate sooner. Goldstein (2012) looked at British
undergraduates. Among a sample of 50, all females, all confident in their abilities to cite
and were eager to write their dissertations.
Source Used with Permission: The Chicago School

Synthesized Example
Studies of undergraduate students reveal conflicting conclusions regarding relationships
between advanced scholarly study and citation efficacy. Although Franz (2008) found
that no participants enjoyed learning citation style, Goldstein (2012) determined in a
larger study that all participants watched felt comfortable citing sources, suggesting that
variables among participant and control group populations must be examined more
closely. Although Perez (2010) expanded on Franz's original study with a larger, more
diverse sample...
Source Used with Permission: The Chicago School

  Use the following steps to synthesize information from different sources

1. Organize your sources

2. Outline your structure
3. Write paragraphs with topic sentences
4. Revise, edit and proofread

Step 1: Organize your sources

After collecting the relevant literature, you’ve got a lot of information to work through,
and no clear idea of how it all fits together.
Before you can start writing, you need to organize your notes in a way that allows you to
see the relationships between sources.
One way to begin synthesizing the literature is to put your notes into a table. Depending
on your topic and the type of literature you’re dealing with, there are a couple of different
ways you can organize this.

Summary table
A summary table collates the key points of each source under consistent headings. This
is a good approach if your sources tend to have a similar structure – for instance, if
they’re all empirical papers.
Each row in the table lists one source, and each column identifies a specific part of the
source. You can decide which headings to include based on what’s most relevant to the
literature you’re dealing with.
For example, you might include columns for things like aims, methods, variables,
population, sample size, and conclusion.
For each study, you briefly summarize each of these aspects. You can also include
columns for your own evaluation and analysis.

The summary table gives you a quick overview of the key points of each source. This
allows you to group sources by relevant similarities, as well as noticing important
differences or contradictions in their findings.

Synthesis matrix
A synthesis matrix is useful when your sources are more varied in their purpose and
structure – for example, when you’re dealing with books and essays making various
different arguments about a topic.
Each column in the table lists one source. Each row is labelled with a specific concept,
topic or theme that recurs across all or most of the sources.
Then, for each source, you summarize the main points or arguments related to the
theme.

The purposes of the table is to identify the common points that connect the sources, as
well as identifying points where they diverge or disagree.
Step 2: Outline your structure
Now you should have a clear overview of the main connections and differences
between the sources you’ve read. Next, you need to decide how you’ll group them
together and the order in which you’ll discuss them.
For shorter papers, your outline can just identify the focus of each paragraph; for longer
papers, you might want to divide it into sections with headings.
There are a few different approaches you can take to help you structure your synthesis.
If your sources cover a broad time period, and you found patterns in how researchers
approached the topic over time, you can organize your discussion chronologically.
That doesn’t mean you just summarize each paper in chronological order; instead, you
should group articles into time periods and identify what they have in common, as well
as signalling important turning points or developments in the literature.
If the literature covers various different topics, you can organize it thematically.
That means that each paragraph or section focuses on a specific theme and explains
how that theme is approached in the literature.

Source Used with Permission: The Chicago School

If you’re drawing on literature from various different fields or they use a wide variety of
research methods, you can organize your sources methodologically.
That means grouping together studies based on the type of research they did and
discussing the findings that emerged from each method.
If your topic involves a debate between different schools of thought, you can organize
it theoretically.
That means comparing the different theories that have been developed and grouping
together papers based on the position or perspective they take on the topic, as well as
evaluating which arguments are most convincing.

Step 3: Write paragraphs with topic sentences

What sets a synthesis apart from a summary is that it combines various sources. The
easiest way to think about this is that each paragraph should discuss a few different
sources, and you should be able to condense the overall point of the paragraph into one
sentence.
This is called a topic sentence, and it usually appears at the start of the paragraph. The
topic sentence signals what the whole paragraph is about; every sentence in the
paragraph should be clearly related to it.
A topic sentence can be a simple summary of the paragraph’s content:

 “Early research on [x] focused heavily on [y].”

For an effective synthesis, you can use topic sentences to link back to the previous
paragraph, highlighting a point of debate or critique:

 “Several scholars have pointed out the flaws in this approach.”

 “While recent research has attempted to address the problem, many of these
studies have methodological flaws that limit their validity.”

By using topic sentences, you can ensure that your paragraphs are coherent and clearly
show the connections between the articles you are discussing.
As you write your paragraphs, avoid quoting directly from sources: use your own words
to explain the commonalities and differences that you found in the literature.
Don’t try to cover every single point from every single source – the key to synthesizing
is to extract the most important and relevant information and combine it to give your
reader an overall picture of the state of knowledge on your topic.

Step 4: Revise, edit and proofread

Like any other piece of academic writing, synthesizing literature doesn’t happen all in
one go – it involves redrafting, revising, editing and proofreading your work.

Checklist for Synthesis

  Do I introduce the paragraph with a clear, focused topic sentence?
  Do I discuss more than one source in the paragraph?
  Do I mention only the most relevant findings, rather than describing every part of the studies?
  Do I discuss the similarities or differences between the sources, rather than summarizing each
source in turn?
  Do I put the findings or arguments of the sources in my own words?
  Is the paragraph organized around a single idea?
  Is the paragraph directly relevant to my research question or topic?
  Is there a logical transition from this paragraph to the next one?
Whether you’re synthesizing literature for an essay, a literature review, or any other
paper, you should make sure you can answer yes to all of these questions.
If you need help with your academic language or extra feedback on structure, consider
using a professional academic editing service.
How to reference this article:
McCombes, S. (2020, March 28). How to synthesize written information from multiple
sources. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/synthesising.html

Further Information

How to Synthesise: a Step-by-Step Approach  Help…I've Been Asked to

Synthesize! Learn how to Synthesise (combine information from sources) 

Home | About | A-Z Index | Privacy Policy | Contact Us | Ref-n-Write

Back to top

This workis licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No

Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
Company Registration no: 10521846

report this ad
How to synthesise

Synthesis Example Organize your SourcesOutline your StructureWrite Paragraphs with

Topic SentencesRevise, Edit and Proofread

REFERENCE No. 3. Writing a Synthesis.

https://www.lsu.edu/hss/english/files/university_writing_files/item35404.pdfhttps://www.lsu.edu/
hss/english/files/university_writing_files/item35404.pdf