How to Write a Response Paper

The reaction paper is a critical review containing a critical analysis of the analysis and evaluation of a dissertation, a monograph, a scientific article, or any other scientific work. The review is a secondary text, the result of the processing of information contained in the original text. It performs informative and evaluation functions, that is, provides for informing, acquaintance with scientific work, assessment, and reflection in a scientific society of certain knowledge.

The feature of this document is the ability to communicate, conduct a dialogue (often imaginary) between the reviewer and the author of the work, the reviewer and the readers. The author of the review can show his or her personal values, he or she acts as an analyst or polemicist, who, with knowledge of the case, evaluates the original document, submits comments, gives advice and recommendations, and initiates a scientific dialogue. Writing such an essay requires study of reaction paper samples for improving writing skills, as well as the analysis of a scientific article, assessing its strengths and weaknesses, advantages and disadvantages, determining the relevance of the topic and the scientific novelty of the research results.

The Essence of Critical Analysis

Critical analysis is an important part of the modern scientific process. For the progress of science, it is critical that the research methods and results are studied in detail in order to decide on the best direction for the development of the future research. If the study was reviewed and accepted for publication, scientists and readers could be sure that the article meets certain standards and the research can be trusted. (Modern science is based mainly on publications in scientific periodicals; therefore, if a scientist publishes an inferior study or makes a mistake in calculations, experiments, or conclusions, it may lead to errors in further research by other scientists). In the process of analyzing the article can become:

• More reliable. Reviewers may indicate gaps in the author's work, which require more detailed explanation or additional experiments.
• Easier for perception. If some moments in the work of the author are difficult for the reader to perceive, reviewers may ask to correct them.
• More useful. Reviewers examine the author's research on the subject matter of their subject area.

The Main Stages of Writing a Paper

To achieve a successful result, the following steps are required when writing the reaction paper rubrics.

Find out which scientific problem the author tries to solve. Keep in mind that a scientific problem is a form of knowledge whose content is something that is not yet known by man. In other words, the scientific problem is the knowledge about ignorance, a question that arises in the process of knowledge and requires an answer.

The issue as knowledge of ignorance reflects the negative moment of the problem situation, which indicates the limited cognitive and practical capabilities of the subject in a certain stage of development of cognition. However, it is also a means and method of finding new knowledge. Problems themselves arise either as a result of a collision of the theory with observation, with practical activity or as a result of contradictions in a certain theory.

Understand the purpose of the article and set the task of the researcher. Does it answer a scientific problem? Can the author solve it completely or in some aspects?

What scientific methods are used by the researcher and for what aspects of research? Is the use of these methods justified; are they suitable for solving a scientific problem?

Evaluate the reliability of the sources, the feasibility of their use, and the degree of independence of the provisions caught by the author of the study. In this stage, you will have to work out the bibliographic list of the article, find out the degree of scientific development of the problem and evaluate the contribution of the actor of the article.

Write about what is your opinion about the value of the research. Can its results be used in practice? How? Can the findings of the author be the basis for further research? Can the publication be useful to students? Can it be interesting for a wide range of readers?

Rules of Reaction Papers Creation

After you have received motivated answers to all your questions, start writing a reaction paper. Remember that writing a review requires time. This is a thoughtful review of the text after reading and re-reading several times. First, you should read the text, note the most important moments, re-read it, and then start considering its content and your impressions again.

As a special type of text, the reaction paper has certain features. First, like all other scientific papers, it has a specific format. Second, the review contains assessments, positive or negative, but evaluations must be substantiated. Given that the reaction paper contains ratings, they should be submitted in accordance with the rules of communication. Negative evaluations are not allowed to be expressed in a sharp form, without certain evidence. It is not allowed to express negative evaluations to the authors of scientific work but only to the material of the statement.

The volume of the reaction paper should be about 700-800 words. The work must contain the title of the document, the author's surname and initials, the publication year, the pages on which the article is posted, the text, which should be presented in an arbitrary form, an analysis and evaluation of the article, a general opinion on the peer-reviewed text, date and surname and initials of the reviewer.

Critical Approaches

In the process of critical analysis of a scientific article, it is useful to think from the point of view of three different groups of people.

1. Authors. The scientist needs to review the article in the way that he or she would like other reviewers to analyze his or her own work. Suppose the authors do their best to write good quality work, but they need an objective view from the side, help in identifying problems with methods, analyzing, or submitting the material itself. 
2. Editor of the scientific journal. For the editor of the magazine, the critically important are the comments on the relevance and scientific novelty of work, which the scientist is reviewing. Editors want to publish only high-quality documents in their magazine. When selecting such documents, the editor needs expert help to determine if research is at an appropriate level within the subject area. Reviewers help editors improve the quality of a publication before they are published in the journal.
3. Readers. The scientist needs to identify places that require clarification or more detailed description so that readers can easily understand the work. As a reviewer, a scientist can save readers' time by removing insignificant parts of the article or by correcting mistakes in research.

There are several questions to answer before starting work on reaction paper:

Is the scientist's qualification sufficient? Does the author have enough time to correct the article? It should be remembered that reviewing is an important contribution to science, along with research and teaching, so it is worth devoting enough time and effort to this process. Are there any potential conflicts of interest? The scientist should evaluate the work as clearly and objectively as possible. Potential conflicts of interest include:

• The reviewer or the author may suffer financially (developing a reviewer is a competing product).
• The reviewer has strong personal feelings (positive or negative) to one of the authors (for example, a former teacher of the writer).
• The scientist published articles with one of the authors of the article.

Knowing these rules and recommendations, you can create a good critical article (a reaction paper). Your writing skills will improve; it will contribute to your success in college. Try your hand at writing an essay and you will see that this is an interesting and cognitive activity.