A reaction paper is a written assignment that provides a personal

opinion regarding a given piece of work. The paper should include

a summary of the work, but the main focus is your thoughts,
feelings and rationalizations about what's discussed in the original
text. This requires analysis of the given work on your part,
followed by a focused, well-thought-out reaction backed by
outside sources, where applicable.

A reaction paper is a great way to explore your thoughts and

opinions in response to a piece of work you've read, heard or
seen. The written paper, also known as a response paper, requires
personal opinion and conclusions to illustrate how well you
understand the topic and use your analytical skills.

Your reaction paper should contain four main parts:

Introduction

Body

Conclusions

List of citations and sources

How to write a reaction paper

The introduction of your paper serves to lay out your ideas and
pique the interest of your readers. A great place to start is to
name the author and the work that you are reacting to,
elucidating the main focus of what you are going to discuss. This
part should be about three or four sentences, closing with your
thesis statement. Keep your thesis statement concise, because
you'll reference it several times throughout your paper. Here are
the suggested steps for structuring and writing this paper:

1. Read and analyze the work thoroughly

It's crucial that you fully understand why you're writing and what
you're reacting to. You may find yourself going back to reread or
rewatch, depending on the medium, to make sure you
understand completely what is being presented to you. As you do
so, take notes on parts that you find important so you can easily
refer back to them later.

2. Craft your thesis statement

Go back through your notes to get an idea of your overarching

angle. This will help you form the main idea you will fully develop
in your reaction. Craft a clear, concise statement as your thesis,
ideally in a single sentence.

3. Create the paper's outline

Again using your notes, start building the framework for your
arguments. Fleshing out these ideas while writing your reaction
will be much easier and more organized when you're following an
outline.
4. Compose the first draft

Use your outline to form the first draft of your work. This will be
rough but should give you a clear idea of what the finished
product is going to look like. Tip: write your introduction last. It's
very frustrating to write your whole paper only to realize that you
deviated from your thesis pages ago. Circling back to it after
writing the rest allows you to tweak the way you stated your
thesis, if necessary.

5. Polish and repeat

There's a possibility that you'll be producing two, three or even

four drafts before the final polished piece is ready to go. For each
pass through the paper during editing, focus on one main thing
that you're editing for. For example, the first pass might be
focused on spelling, grammar and punctuation. The next pass
could be looking at the organization of ideas, and so on. You'll
make as many passes as you need to create exactly what you
want to present.

Part 1: The introduction and summary

The first part of your paper will include a quick, objective

summary of the work you're reacting to. It should include the
author's name and the title of the piece as well as the publication
date. The summarization itself should be a highlight reel of the
main points and a condensed explanation of the key supporting
elements.
You should feel free to use direct quotes for ideas that you deem
are especially important to your reaction. At this point, it's
unnecessary to go into detail on any one point or introduce any
subjective opinions. That will come later.

Part 2: Your thoughts, feelings and opinions

The second part of the paper is where you express your opinions
on the key points of the work, supported by reliable sources. For
each point in your reaction, circle back to reference the
corresponding part in the original piece. This is your analysis, the
most important section of this paper. Your reactions can answer a
question relating the work to real-life situations in society, they
can respond to the emotions evoked in you when you
read/watched it or they can articulate how the original work
shifted or solidified your perspective on the subject.

Part 3: Your conclusion

Your evaluation should discuss the accuracy, organization,

importance and completeness of the work. This is where you'll
take a stance on whether you recommend this work to others and
the reasons for your answer. Your conclusions should be
presented concisely and reiterate your thesis and the main points
that took shape as you wrote. Finally, your cited sources should be
listed according to the writing style you're using (MLA, APA).