critical response essay examples

How to Write a Critical Response Essay With Examples and Tips

16 January 2024

last updated

A critical response essay is an important type of academic essay, which instructors employ to gauge the students’ ability to read critically and express their opinions. Firstly, this guide begins with a detailed definition of a critical essay and an extensive walkthrough of source analysis. Next, the manual on how to write a critical response essay breaks down the writing process into the pre-writing, writing, and post-writing stages and discusses each stage in extensive detail. Finally, the manual provides practical examples of an outline and a critical response essay, which implement the writing strategies and guidelines of critical response writing. After the examples, there is a brief overview of documentation styles. Hence, students need to learn how to write a perfect critical response essay to follow its criteria.

Definition of a Critical Response Essay

A critical response essay presents a reader’s reaction to the content of an article or any other piece of writing and the author’s strategy for achieving his or her intended purpose. Basically, a critical response to a piece of text demands an analysis, interpretation, and synthesis of a reading. Moreover, these operations allow readers to develop a position concerning the extent to which an author of a text creates a desired effect on the audience that an author establishes implicitly or explicitly at the beginning of a text. Mostly, students assume that a critical response revolves around the identification of flaws, but this aspect only represents one dimension of a critical response. In turn, a critical response essay should identify both the strengths and weaknesses of a text and present them without exaggeration of their significance in a text.

Source Analysis

1. Questions That Guide Source Analysis

Writers engage in textual analysis through critical reading. Hence, students undertake critical reading to answer three primary questions:

• What does the author say or show unequivocally?
• What does the author not say or show outright but implies intentionally or unintentionally in the text?
• What do I think about responses to the previous two questions?

Readers should strive to comprehensively answer these questions with the context and scope of a critical response essay. Basically, the need for objectivity is necessary to ensure that the student’s analysis does not contain any biases through unwarranted or incorrect comparisons. Nonetheless, the author’s pre-existing knowledge concerning the topic of a critical response essay is crucial in facilitating the process of critical reading. In turn, the generation of answers to three guiding questions occurs concurrently throughout the close reading of an assigned text or other essay topics .

2. Techniques of Critical Reading

Previewing, reading, and summarizing are the main methods of critical reading. Basically, previewing a text allows readers to develop some familiarity with the content of a critical response essay, which they gain through exposure to content cues, publication facts, important statements, and authors’ backgrounds. In this case, readers may take notes of questions that emerge in their minds and possible biases related to prior knowledge. Then, reading has two distinct stages: first reading and rereading and annotating. Also, students read an assigned text at an appropriate speed for the first time with minimal notetaking. After that, learners reread a text to identify core and supporting ideas, key terms, and connections or implied links between ideas while making detailed notes. Lastly, writers summarize their readings into the main points by using their own words to extract the meaning and deconstruct critical response essays into meaningful parts.

3. Creating a Critical Response

Up to this point, source analysis is a blanket term that represents the entire process of developing a critical response. Mainly, the creation of a critical response essay involves analysis, interpretation, and synthesis, which occur as distinct activities. In this case, students analyze their readings by breaking down texts into elements with distilled meanings and obvious links to a thesis statement . During analysis, writers may develop minor guiding questions under first and second guiding questions, which are discipline-specific. Then, learners focus on interpretations of elements to determine their significance to an assigned text as a whole, possible meanings, and assumptions under which they may exist. Finally, authors of critical response essays create connections through the lens of relevant pre-existing knowledge, which represents a version of the element’s interconnection that they perceive to be an accurate depiction of a text.

Writing Steps of a Critical Response Essay

Step 1: pre-writing, a. analysis of writing situation.

Purpose. Before a student begins writing a critical response essay, he or she must identify the main reason for communication to the audience by using a formal essay format. Basically, the primary purposes of writing a critical response essay are explanation and persuasion. In this case, it is not uncommon for two purposes to overlap while writing a critical response essay. However, one of the purposes is usually dominant, which implies that it plays a dominant role in the wording, evidence selection, and perspective on a topic. In turn, students should establish their purposes in the early stages of the writing process because the purpose has a significant effect on the essay writing approach.

Audience. Students should establish a good understanding of the audience’s expectations, characteristics, attitudes, and knowledge in anticipation of the writing process. Basically, learning the audience’s expectations enables authors to meet the organizational demands, ‘burden of proof,’ and styling requirements. In college writing, it is the norm for all essays to attain academic writing standards. Then, the interaction between characteristics and attitudes forces authors to identify a suitable voice, which is appreciative of the beliefs and values of the audience. Lastly, writers must consider the level of knowledge of the audience while writing a critical response essay because it has a direct impact on the context, clarity, and readability of a paper. Consequently, a critical response essay for classmates is quite different from a paper that an author presents to a multi-disciplinary audience.

Define a topic. Topic selection is a critical aspect of the prewriting stage. Ideally, assignment instructions play a crucial role in topic selection, especially in higher education institutions. For example, when writing a critical response essay, instructors may choose to provide students with a specific article or general instructions to guide learners in the selection of relevant reading sources. Also, students may not have opportunities for independent topic selection in former circumstances. However, by considering the latter assignment conditions, learners may need to identify a narrow topic to use in article selection. Moreover, students should take adequate time to do preliminary research, which gives them a ‘feel’ of the topic, for example, 19th-century literature. Next, writers narrow down the scope of the topic based on their knowledge and interests, for example, short stories by black female writers from the 19 th century.

B. Research and Documentation

Find sources. Once a student has a topic, he or she can start the process of identifying an appropriate article. Basically, choosing a good source for writing a critical response essay occurs is much easier when aided with search tools on the web or university repository. In this case, learners select keywords or other unique qualities of an article and develop a search filter. Moreover, authors review abstracts or forewords of credible sources to determine their suitability based on their content. Besides content, other factors constrain the article selection process: the word count for a critical response essay and a turnaround time. In turn, if an assignment has a fixed length of 500 words and a turnaround time of one week, it is not practical to select a 200-page source despite content suitability.

Content selection. The process of selecting appropriate content from academic sources relies heavily on the purpose of a critical response essay. Basically, students must select evidence that they will include in a paper to support their claims in each paragraph. However, writers tend to let a source speak through the use of extensive quotations or summaries, which dilutes a synthesis aspect of a critical response essay. Instead, learners should take a significant portion of time to identify evidence from reliable sources , which are relevant to the purpose of an essay. Also, a student who is writing a critical analysis essay to disagree with one or more arguments will select different pieces of evidence as compared to a person who is writing to analyze the overall effectiveness of the work.

Annotated bibliography. An annotated bibliography is vital to the development of a critical response essay because it enables authors to document useful information that they encounter during research. During research and documentation stages for a critical response essay, annotated bibliographies contain the main sources for a critical analysis essay and other sources that contribute to the knowledge base of an author, even though these sources will not appear in reference lists. Mostly, a critical response essay has only one source. However, an annotated bibliography contains summaries of other sources, which may inform the author’s critical response through the development of a deep understanding of a topic. In turn, an annotated bibliography is quite useful when an individual is writing a critical response to an article on an unfamiliar topic.

Step 2: Writing a Critical Response Essay

A. organization..

Thesis . A thesis statement sentence is a crucial component of a critical response essay because it presents the student’s purpose, argument, and the conclusion that he or she draws from the textual evidence. Also, the thesis statement is the response to the thesis question, which an author creates from assignment instructions. After completing the research stage, students can develop a tentative thesis statement to act as a starting point for the writing stage. Usually, tentative thesis statements undergo numerous revisions during the writing stage, which is a consequence of the refinement of the main idea during the drafting.

Weigh the evidence. Based on the tentative thesis, an author evaluates the relative importance of collected pieces of textual evidence to the central idea. Basically, students should distinguish between general and specific ideas to ascertain that there exists a logical sequence of presentation, which the audience can readily grasp. Firstly, for writing a critical response essay, learners should identify general ideas and establish specific connections that exist between each general idea and specific details, which support a central claim. Secondly, writers should consider some implications of ideas as they conduct a sorting process and remove evidence that does not fit. Moreover, students fill ‘holes’ that are present due to the lack of adequate supporting evidence to conclude this stage.

Create an outline. An essay outline is a final product of weighing the significance of the evidence in the context of the working thesis statement. In particular, a formal outline is a preferred form of essay structure for a critical response essay because it allows for detailed documentation of ideas while maintaining a clear map of connections. During the formation of an outline, students use a systematic scheme of indentation and labeling all the parts of an outline structure. In turn, this arrangement ensures that elements that play the same role are readily discernible at a glance, for example, primary essay divisions, secondary divisions, principle supporting points, and specific details.

Drafting. The drafting step involves the conversion of the one-sentence ideas in an outline format into complete paragraphs and, eventually, a critical response essay. In this case, there is no fixed approach to writing the first draft. Moreover, students should follow a technique that they find effective in overcoming the challenge of starting to write a critical response essay. Nonetheless, it is good practice to start writing paragraphs that authors believe are more straightforward to include regardless of specific positions that they hold on an outline. In turn, learners should strive to write freely and be open to new ideas despite the use of an outline. During drafting, the conveyance of meaning is much more important than the correctness of the draft.

Step 3: Post-Writing

Individual revision. An individual revision process focuses on the rethinking and rewriting of a critical response essay to improve the meaning and structure of a paper. Essentially, students try to review their papers from a perspective of readers to ensure that the level of detail, relationship and arrangement of paragraphs, and the contribution of the minor ideas to the thesis statement attain the desired effect. In this case, the use of a checklist improves the effectiveness of individual revision. Moreover, a checklist contains 12 main evaluation categories: assignment, purpose, audience and voice, genre, thesis, organization, development, unity, coherence, title, introduction, and conclusion.

Collaborative revision. Collaborative revision is a revision strategy that covers subconscious oversight that occurs during individual revision. During an individual revision of a critical response essay, authors rely on self-criticism, which is rarely 100% effective because writers hold a bias that their works are of high quality. Therefore, subjecting an individual’s work to peer review allows students to collect critique from an actual reader who may notice problems that an author may easily overlook. In turn, learners may provide peer reviewers with a checklist to simplify the revision process.

Editing . The editing step requires authors to examine the style, clarity, and correctness of a critical response essay. In particular, students review their papers to ascertain their conformance with the guidelines of formal essay writing and the English language. Moreover, sentence fragments, subject-verb agreement, dangling modifiers, incorrect use of punctuation, vague pronoun references, and parallelism are common grammar issues that learners eliminate during editing. Then, writers confirm that their critical response essays adhere to referencing style guidelines for citation and formatting, such as the inclusion of a title page, appropriate in-text citation, and proper styling of bibliographic information in the reference list. In turn, students must proofread a critical response essay repeatedly until they find all errors because such mistakes may divert the audience’s attention from the content of a paper.

Sample Outline Template for a Critical Response Essay

I. Introduction

A. Summary of an article. B. Thesis statement.

A. First body paragraph

• The idea for the first paragraph.
• Evidence for the first point from an article.
• Interpretation of the evidence.

B. Second body paragraph

• The idea for the second paragraph.
• Evidence for the second point from an article.

C. Third body paragraph

• The idea for the third paragraph.
• Evidence for the third point from an article.

III. Conclusion

A. Summary of three points that form a body section. B. Closing remarks.

Uniqueness of a Critical Response Essay Outline

The presence of a summary in the introduction and an interpretation for each piece of evidence are defining features of a critical response essay. Typically, the introduction, being one of 5 parts of an essay , does not contain a succinct summary of a source that an author uses in body paragraphs. In this case, the incorporation of a summary in the introduction paragraph provides the audience with specific information concerning the target article of a critical response. Specifically, a critical response essay differs from other response papers because it emphasizes the provision of reasonable judgments of a text rather than the testing and defense of one’s judgments. In turn, authors of a critical response essay do not provide evaluation for their judgments, which implies that critical responses may be different but correct if a specific interpretation is reasonable to the audience.

Expanding an Outline Format Into a Critical Response Essay

1. introduction.

The introductory paragraph in a critical response essay consists of two primary sections: a summary of an article and a thesis statement. Firstly, a summary of an article consists of the text’s central argument and the purpose of the presentation of the argument. Basically, students should strive to distill the main idea and purpose of the text into a few sentences because the length of the introduction is approximately 10% of the essay’s word count. Then, a summary provides the audience with adequate background information concerning an article, which forms a foundation for announcing the student’s primary idea. In this case, writers may include an additional sentence between a summary and a thesis statement to establish a smooth flow in the opening paragraph. However, learners should not quote thesis and purpose statements because it results in a fragmented introduction, which is unappealing to readers and ineffective.

• All body paragraphs have in a critical response essay four main elements: the writer’s idea, meaningful evidence from a reading text, interpretation of the evidence, and a concluding statement.

A. Writer’s Idea

The writer’s idea for a paragraph appears in the first sentence of a paragraph, which is a topic sentence. For example, if students know how to write a topic sentence , they present readers with a complete and distinct idea that proves or supports a thesis statement. In this case, authors should carefully word their topic sentences to ensure that there is no unnecessary generalization or spillovers of ideas from other paragraphs. Notably, all the topic sentences in the body of a critical response essay share a logical relationship that allows the audience to easily follow the development of the central idea of a paper.

B. Evidence

Students should provide evidence that supports the idea that they propose in the topic sentence. Basically, the evidence for all body paragraphs is the product of critical reading of an article, which allows writers to identify meaningful portions of a text. During the presentation of evidence, learners should ascertain that the contextual meaning of paraphrases or quotations is not lost because such a strategy will harm interpretations that follow after it. In turn, critical response essays must not contain lengthy or numerous quotations unless the meaning or intended effect of a quotation is not replicable upon paraphrasing.

C. Interpretation.

Interpretation segments of paragraphs allow authors to explain the significance of the evidence to the topic sentence. In a critical response essay, the interpretation is the equivalent of an author revealing the possible assumptions behind a text paraphrase and commenting on whether or not he or she finds them reasonable. Moreover, students make inferences concerning their meaning in the context of the entire narrative and its relation to the paragraph’s idea. In turn, learners should refrain from reading too much into a piece of evidence because it may result in false or unreasonable inferences.

D. Concluding Sentence

The concluding statement is the final sentence of any paragraph. In this case, the primary role of the concluding sentence is to emphasize the link between the topic sentence, evidence, interpretation, and the essay’s central idea. Also, the concluding statement should not contain an in-text citation because it does not introduce new evidence to support the topic sentence. Therefore, authors use concluding sentences to maintain the unity between body paragraphs and a critical response essay in its entirety.

3. Conclusion

The conclusion comprises of three core elements: a restatement of a thesis statement, a summary of the main points that authors present in body paragraphs, and closing remarks. In particular, the first statement of the conclusion draws the attention of the audience to the central idea, which an author proposes in a thesis statement. Then, students review the main points of a critical response essay to demonstrate that written arguments in body paragraphs adequately support a thesis statement. Moreover, writers should summarize the main points of a paper in the same order that they appear in the main part to guarantee that logical pattern in the body is readily discernible in summary. Finally, learners make their closing remarks, which creates a sense of wholesomeness in a critical response essay or ties a paper to a larger relevant discourse.

Example of Writing a Critical Response Essay

Topic: American Capitalism: The New Face of Slavery

I. Sample Introduction of a Critical Response Essay

Capitalism is a dominant characteristic of the American economy. In this case, Matthew Desmond’s article “In Order to Understand the Brutality of American Capitalism, You Have to Start on the Plantation” discusses the role of slavery in shaping contemporary business practices. Specifically, the author attempts to convince the audience that the brutality of American capitalism originates from slavery. In turn, Desmond lays a strong but simple foundation for his argument, which ensures that the audience can conceptualize the link between plantation slavery and contemporary American capitalistic practices.

II. Example of a Body in a Critical Response Essay

A. example of the first body paragraph: american capitalism.

Early in the article, Desmond informs readers of the high variability in the manifestation of capitalism in societies, which creates the impression that American capitalism is a choice. For example, Desmond (2019) argues that the brutality of American capitalism is simply one of the possible outcomes of a society built on capitalistic principles because other societies implement the same principles in a manner that is liberating, protective, and democratic. Moreover, Desmond begins his argument by eliminating a popular presumption that exploitation and oppression are unavoidable outcomes of capitalism. In turn, this strategic move to establish this fact is in the introductory section of the article because it invites the audience to rethink the meaning of capitalism. Furthermore, its plants doubt regarding the ‘true’ meaning of capitalism outside the context of American society.

B. Example of the Second Body Paragraph: American Capitalism: Slavery and American’s Economic Growth

After establishing that the perception of capitalism through the lens of American society has some bias, Desmond proceeds to provide detailed evidence to explain the attempt to camouflage the obvious link between slavery and America’s economic growth. For instance, Desmond (2019) notes the role of Alfred Chandler’s book, The Visible Hand, and Caitlin Rosenthal’s book, Accounting for Slavery, in breaking the link between management practices in plantations and modern corporations by suggesting that the current business practices are a consequence of the 19th-century railroad industry. In this case, Desmond uses this evidence to make a logical appeal to the audience, which makes his argument more convincing because he explains the reason behind the exclusion of slavery in the discourse on modern industry. As a result, Desmond dismisses one of the main counterarguments against his central argument, which increases his persuasive power.

C. Example of the Third Body Paragraph: Input vs. Output Dynamic

Desmond emphasizes the link between slavery and American capitalism to readers by using the simple input vs. output dynamic throughout the article. For example, Desmond (2019) compares the Plantation Record and Account Book to the heavy digital surveillance techniques in modern workplaces because they collect data, which the employers use to maximize productivity while minimizing inputs. In particular, the comparison reveals that employers did not stop the practice of reducing laborers into units of production with fixed productivity thresholds. Moreover, the constant repetition of the theme of low input and high output dominates the body paragraphs, which makes it nearly impossible for readers to lose sight of the link between slavery and business practices under American capitalism. In turn, the simplification of the underlying logic in Desmond’s argument ensures its clarity to the audience.

III. Sample Conclusion of a Critical Response Essay

Desmond carefully plans the presentation of his argument to the audience, which allows readers to follow the ideas easily. In particular, the author starts with a call for readers to set aside any presumptions concerning capitalism and its origin. Then, Desmond provides the audience with an alternative narrative with support from seminal texts in slavery and economics. On the whole, Desmond manages to convince the audience that the American capitalistic society is merely a replica rather than an aberration of slavery.

Citing Sources in a Critical Response Essay

A critical response essay contains specific thoughts of the article’s author and direct words of the text’s author. In this case, students must conduct proper documentation to ensure that readers of critical response essays can distinguish between these two types of ‘voices.’ Moreover, documentation prevents incidents of plagiarism. Usually, instructors mention a referencing technique that students should use in writing a critical response essay. However, if assignment instructions do not identify a specific documentation style, writers should use a referencing technique that is acceptable for scholarly writing in their disciplines.

In-text citation:

• Parenthetical: (Desmond, 2019).
• Narrative: Desmond (2019).
• Desmond, M. (2019, August 12). In order to understand the brutality of American capitalism, you have to start on the plantation . New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/slavery-capitalism.html
• Parenthetical: (Desmond par. 1).
• Narrative: Desmond argues . . . (par. 1).

Works Cited:

• Desmond, Matthew. “In Order to Understand the Brutality of American Capitalism, You Have to Start on the Plantation.” New York Times , 14 Aug. 2019, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/slavery-capitalism.html.

3. Harvard Referencing

• Parenthetical: (Desmond 2019).

Reference List:

• Desmond, M 2019, In order to understand the brutality of American capitalism, you have to start on the plantation . Available from: <https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/slavery-capitalism.html>. [27 August 2020].

4. Chicago/Turabian

In-text citation (footnote):

• 1. Matthew Desmond, “In Order to Understand the Brutality of American Capitalism, You Have to Start on the Plantation,” New York Times, August 14, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/slavery-capitalism.html.

Bibliography:

• Desmond, Matthew. “In Order to Understand the Brutality of American Capitalism, You Have to Start on the Plantation.” New York Times. August 14, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/slavery-capitalism.html.

Final Provisions on a Critical Response Essay

• Critical reading is a precursor for writing an effective critical response essay.
• Students must conduct adequate research on a topic to develop a proper understanding of a theme, even if only one article appears on the reference list.
• Notetaking or annotation is a good practice that aids students in extracting meaning from an article.
• Writers should plan for all activities in the writing process to ascertain that they have adequate time to move through all the stages.
• An outline is an organizational tool, which learners must use to establish the sequence of ideas in a critical response essay.
• The purpose of a critical response essay has a significant impact on the selection of evidence and the arrangement of body paragraphs.
• Students should prioritize revision and editing, which represent opportunities to refine the content of an essay and remove mechanical issues.
• Collaborative and individual revision are equally important because they play different roles in the writing of a critical response essay.
• Evidence selection is dependent on the purpose and thesis statement of a critical response essay.

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A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Critical Response Essay

Students have to write different types of essays all the time. However, they face many problems when it comes to writing a critical response essay. Why is it so hard to manage? What are the main components of it? We will answer all these questions in our complete guide to help you learn how you can write this type of essays quickly and easily.

What Is a Critical Response Essay?

First things first – let’s find out what a critical response essay is and what components it includes.

It is an assignment that is based on your analytical skills. It implies the understanding of the primary source, such as literary work, movie or painting (its problematic, content, and significance), and the ability to perform critical thinking and reflect your opinion on the given subject.

The aim of critical response essay is to get familiarised with the subject, form your opinion (the agreement or disagreement with the author), reveal the problematic of the piece and support your claims with evidence from the primary source.

For example, your task might be to analyze the social structure in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

How Is It Different From Other Essay Types?

Every essay you write has a very similar structure that consists of an introduction, the main body, and the conclusion. While this type is not an exception and is quite similar to an analytical essay , it still has differences. One of those is the fact that it contains two parts. The first part includes a quick summary of the analyzed work. The second part is a critique – a response to the author’s opinion, facts, examples, etc.

What Should You Pay Attention To?

Before we dive into the guide and the steps of crafting your critical essay, let’s take a look at some of the most common pitfalls that often occur during the writing process of a piece like this.

Not knowing what you are writing about.

This makes no sense, right? So, be sure to read the piece that your topic is based on and make sure you understand what it is about.

Not understanding what your task is.

Be attentive to the task and make sure you understand what is required from you. You would be surprised if you knew how many essays are written without even touching the main question or problematic.

Being in a hurry.

A lot of students start working on their essays at the very last moment and do it in haste. You can avoid a lot of mistakes if you are attentive, focused, and organized. If you have too little time to write a strong response essay yourself, you can always get the assistance of a professional writing service. This will help you to be on time with your assignment without sacrificing its quality.

And now let’s begin your journey of writing an essay.

Step 1. Examine the Primary Source

Before starting actually writing your critical essay, you need to get acquainted with the subject of your analysis. It might be an article, a book or any other type of text. Sometimes, this task is given for pieces of art, such as a painting or a movie.

So, the first step would be to gain as much information about the subject as possible. You might also search for some reviews or research papers on the subject. Be sure to examine the primary source thoroughly and read the complete text if it is a piece of writing.

Advice: make notes while you are working with your primary source. Highlight the main points that will build a basis for your analysis and which you can use to form your opinion on. Notes will also help you to structure your essay.

• Did you read the whole text or examined your primary source thoroughly?
• Did you find information on the topic of your assignment?
• Did you write down the key points that you are going to use for your essay?

Step 2. Analyze the Source and Your Notes

After you finished with your primary source, try to analyze and summarize all of your findings. Identify the problematic of the piece and find the appropriate notes that you have made to structure your future essay.

Formulate your opinion – are you agree or disagree with the author? Can you support your statements with evidence?

• Did you examine all the notes you have?
• Did you form your opinion on the subject?
• Did you find the arguments to support your main point?
• Did you succeed to define the strengths and weaknesses of the work?

Step 3. Write Your Essay

After you have all of the needed materials next to you, you can start working on the text of your essay.

• First of all, write a critical response essay rough draft.
• Reread your draft and make your edits.
• Proofread and edit your final version.
• Check for plagiarism, grammatical and punctuation errors.
• Write a Works Cited page or bibliography page (if required).

Now, we will look at each part of your essay in detail. Keep in mind that you have to follow the guidelines provided by your teacher or professor. Some critical response essay examples will come in handy at this step.

How to Write a Critical Response Introduction

Your introduction is the part where you have to provide your thesis statement. Once you have your opinion and your thoughts organized, it’s pretty easy to make them transform into a statement that all your essay will be built on. Express your agreement or disagreement with the author.

For example, your thesis statement might be:

“Romeo and Juliet” by Shakespeare is a masterpiece that raises the problem of social inequality and classes differentiation which aggravates the drama culmination.

Advice: make sure you have evidence to support your thesis statement later in the text. Make your introduction in the form of a brief summary of the text and your statement. You need to introduce your reader to the topic and express your opinion on it.

• Did you embed your thesis statement?
• Is your thesis statement complete and suitable for the topic?
• Can you support your thesis statement with evidence?
• Did you summarize the analyzed subject?
• Did you start your introduction with a catchy sentence – a powerful statement, fact, quote or intriguing content?
• Did you include a transition sentence at the end of your introduction?

How to Write Critical Response Paragraphs

Explain each of your main points in separate body paragraphs. Structure your text so that the most strong statement with the following supporting evidence is placed first. Afterward, explain your other points and provide examples and evidence from the original text.

Remember that each of your statements should support your main idea – your thesis statement. Provide a claim at the beginning of the paragraph and then develop your idea in the following text. Support each of your claims with at least one quote from the primary source.

For example:

To distinguish the division between classes and express the contribution of each social class Shakespeare used different literary methods. For example, when a person from a lower class speaks, Shakespeare uses prose:

NURSE I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes (God save the mark!) here on his manly breast— A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse, Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaubed in blood, All in gore blood. I swoonèd at the sight. (3.2.58-62)

At the same time upper-class characters speak in rhymed verse:

MONTAGUE But I can give thee more, For I will raise her statue in pure gold, That while Verona by that name is known, There shall no figure at such rate be set As that of true and faithful Juliet. (5.3.309-313)

• Did you support your thesis statement with claims?
• Do your claims appeal to critical response questions?
• Did you provide evidence for each claim?

How to Write Critical Response Conclusion

The best way to conclude your essay is to restate your thesis statement in different phrasing. Summarize all of your findings and repeat your opinion on the subject. A one- or two-paragraph conclusion is usually enough if not requested more.

We’ve also prepared some critical response essay topics for you:

• Explain the changes of the character throughout the novel: Frodo from Lord of the Rings /Dorian Gray from The Picture of Dorian Gray .
• Examine a setting and the atmosphere in the novel Gone with the Wind/Jane Eyre .
• Investigate the cultural or historical background in Romeo and Juliet/Macbeth .
• Describe the impact of the supporting character: Horatio in Hamlet /Renfield in Dracula .
• Describe the genre of the work and its influence on the mood of the piece: To Build a Fire/ For Whom the Bell Tolls.

This was our step-by-step guide to writing your perfect critical response essay. We hope our tips will be useful to you!

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6 Writing the Critical Response Paragraph

The Critical Response Paragraph (CRP) is a short, one-paragraph mini-essay that requires you to write an argument about one aspect of the assigned reading. Often, book club discussions will help generate ideas for these essays, but you may also choose to write an individually generated response, with my prior approval. CRPs are graded on a 100-point scale.

In the CRP, you state your idea of one of the story’s meanings regarding real life (theme), and then you support that claim with evidence from the text and analysis of the evidence. Writing the CRP will require that you think critically about the texts we are reading and discussing in class.

The CRP must not simply summarize the text or evaluate whether or not you like the text . Instead, it must be a 7- to 10-sentence persuasive argument about how you interpret the text in the context of our class discussions about the stories and cultural expectations. Because it is a short argument, obviously it will be a partial argument. That is, a CRP generally only has space to present one piece of evidence, such as a quotation or paraphrase and your analysis to show how it supports your claim.

This work requires and helps you to think critically about the texts you read, and it is meant to help you create a short argument that can be expanded into a longer, more complex argument for the longer critical response essays (CREs), assigned later in the semester. So we do not work on one CRP on one story and then kick it to the curb and move on to something new right away. Instead, you will produce a number of CRPs from which you will choose two on which to base your two CREs (one at mid-term and one near the end of the semester).

The CRP has four required parts:

1) An argumentative topic sentence , also called a CLAIM . You may know this as a thesis statement. This claim must appear at or near the beginning of the paragraph.

2) Evidence in the form of quotations or paraphrases from the text about which you are writing, with the proper source information: author’s last name and page number, in parentheses. Because this is a short argument, I only expect you to work on one or two pieces of evidence, but you must choose them wisely as they will be the only support for argument.

3) Analysis and interpretation of your evidence to show how it supports your claim. Without this part, you will not have made a complete argument. Do not expect your reader (me, in this case) to do the work of analysis and interpretation for you.

4) A strong, worthwhile conclusion , not just a summary of the argument or repetition of the claim.

The following guidelines tell you more about each part of the CRP. Remember: do not write a plot summary. Engage the text and try to understand what it is attempting to say about real life.

1. The Argumentative Claim, written as a Topic Sentence

As a mini-essay, the CRP must include a topic sentence (usually the first sentence or two) that includes the following:

• the author’s name and the title of the text you are engaging
• your claim, which must state concisely what theme you will argue. Remember that THEME means what the story suggests about real life.

Creating a strong argumentative topic sentence is perhaps the most crucial step in writing a critical response paragraph.

Key Takeaways

The most common mistakes students make when writing a critical response paragraph are to start with a weak topic sentence or to start with a topic sentence that is a statement of fact.

If, after writing your paragraph, you find that many of your sentences say the same thing or that you have actually summarized all or part of a text, then you probably have not created a strong topic sentence.

What do you think is a reader’s response to that introductory sentence? “So what?” “Isn’t that obvious?” Yes, it is obvious. It is a statement of fact that leaves no room for interpretation or analysis, and it makes no argument. This kind of topic sentence leads to plot summary of the text. There is nothing to prove.

Instead, ask yourself what is the point of a story in which two sisters dislike the third sister? WHY do they dislike her, and what does that mean if we want to apply the story to real life (which we do)?

To identify possible meanings, let’s give this a little more thought. WHY do the elder sisters dislike Beauty? Isn’t she obviously more beautiful than they are? Do they want her out of the way so that they can shine more brightly? Aren’t they unhappy with their husbands, so maybe they want to look for new husbands? Might Beauty’s presence interfere with that search for new husbands? If the answers are “yes,” what might that mean for the real lives of real young women in general—outside the story?

Here’s one possibility: maybe the writer sees the story as an example of how young women may be divided from each other because they find themselves competing with each other for husbands/partners. From that idea, we might begin to write a better claim::

Notice that this beginning of a claim takes the original idea that the sisters dislike Beauty and turns it into an argument about something the story shows us. Finish the claim by making that something about real life, about the cultural expectation to get married and what it might do to young women and their relationships with each other.

This is a strong claim because it makes a statement that can be argued.

There are various ways in which to proceed with the argument, but remember that in a CRP, you are only required to argue the claim based on one point of textual evidence which you analyze and explain to show how it supports your claim.

• You could argue about the sisters’ early envy of Beauty and how they fear that Beauty will steal the spotlight from them and then they’ll end up with less-than-satisfactory husbands.
• Or you could argue about the sisters’ dislike of Beauty later because they have in fact married unsatisfactory husbands and they don’t want to see Beauty do better than they have in choosing a husband.
• You could even argue how the story suggests that the pressure to marry may lead women (like the sisters) to accept unsuitable partners.

All three possible arguments might be written so as to support the example claim, above. But you must be sure to relate the textual details to the claim’s point about real life. That is, you must say explicitly HOW these points in the story tell us something about the problems of marriage for real-life young women.

2. The Argument: Evidence and Interpretation; Optional Confutation

Now that you have created a strong argumentative topic sentence, how do you prove your argument? Much as an attorney in a court of law does, you must present evidence and analyze it to show precisely how it supports your claim.

Quotations and paraphrases from the text, plus your analysis and interpretations, supply the evidence you need to support your argument.  You may want to go through the text and mark or write down passages that illustrate what you are trying to prove. From these passages, choose one or two that most clearly support your argument. There may be more, but in a 7-10 sentence paragraph, you do not have the space to incorporate all of them, so choose the strongest one, or two at the most.

However, simply filling your paragraph with quotation and paraphrase does nothing to prove your argument.  When you use a quote or a paraphrase, you must do the following:

Unclear Evidence: Beauty’s sisters dislike her, but they turn positively dangerous when they try to keep Beauty from the Beast. “‘Let’s try to keep Beauty here for more than a week. Her stupid beast will get angry . . . and maybe he’ll eat her up’” (48)

This example does use an interesting passage from the text with an appropriate introductory comment. However, the passage is not connected to the introductory sentence in any way, so it isn’t clear how the sentence and the quotation are related. To make this point a better use of evidence, do the following:

• CONNECT the introductory phrase to the quotation with your words or punctuation.

Beauty’s sisters dislike her, but they become positively dangerous when they try to keep Beauty from the Beast: “‘Let’s try to keep Beauty here for more than a week. Her stupid beast will get angry . . . and maybe he’ll eat her up’” (48).

• INTERPRET the quotation to show your reader how it supports your claim.

This way, you, as the writer, tell your reader the meaning of the quotation as you see it. Notice how you can add a little interpretation in the same sentence: especially since both sisters are so unhappy with their husbands.

So you’re saying, in effect, that the sisters intend to clear the competition—Beauty—from the playing field because they may soon be looking for new husbands and they don’t want Beauty around to grab all the attention.

TRY THIS: If you are not sure how to analyze your evidence, try using a “because” statement.

For example: This quotation shows that Beauty’s sisters are dangerous because [now tell me specifically how the quotation shows this danger]. 

Making this kind of move–properly introducing your evidence and then interpreting it–should make up most of your paragraph .

3. Optional: Confutation

Confutation means presenting some opposing idea that might challenge or disprove your argument, and then refuting or dealing with that opposing idea in some way that tends to weaken its challenge to your claim. The goal is to strengthen your argument by showing how weak the opposition is.

Confutation is optional in CRPs. So why would you want to include it in your CRP if it’s not required? Two reasons:

• You can earn extra points if your confutation is properly done.
• Confutation will be required in your longer essay (CRE1 and CRE2), so it’s not a bad idea to practice confutation in your CRPs so you’ll be prepared to write better confutations when it’s time to write your CREs.

However, the choice whether to include confutation in your CRPs is ultimately yours. You won’t lose any points for not including it.

Confutation Example:

Some readers may argue that the sisters have good reason to dislike Beauty, since they have been living in her shadow for most of their lives. But Beauty should not be blamed because others see her as beautiful. On the contrary, she does her best to be kind to her sisters, but they resent and reject her kindness. [Include some evidence here regarding Beauty’s kindness and the sisters’ resentment.]

SO, now that you’ve produced an arguable claim, provided evidence from the text and analysis to show how it supports your claim, and possibly added confutation, it’s time to wrap up your argument with a brief concluding sentence or two.

4. Concluding Statement

Don’t allow your paragraph to just fade out at the end or to stop abruptly after you’ve proven your argument. You’ve stated your claim, supplied evidence to support it, and interpreted the evidence, and possibly refuted a point of opposition. Now, end your paragraph with a brief but strong conclusion (one or two sentences) that identifies how your argument is important in some way and makes your reader feel that reading your argument has been worthwhile.

Notice that this statement is somewhat like the argument’s claim, but it says more now, in the light of what you’ve argued. And it says something about real people in real life, not just the characters in the story. This is what it takes to write an argument and a useful conclusion—linking your argument to real life and what the story suggests about it.

Try this: If you are having trouble writing a useful conclusion, try using confutation as your conclusion. Write a confutation that relates to your claim and use that to conclude your argument. See the example below.

Notice how this conclusion provides both confutation AND a reminder of the initial CLAIM and how your argument has supported it.

5. Works Cited

See the chapter titled “Citing Your Sources”

6. Some ADDITIONAL Things to Keep in Mind

Book club discussions and claims.

Book Club Discussions are meant to help you produce possible claims in a group discussion setting. I provide feedback on these claims in class which is meant to help you further improve the claim so it can be used for your CRPs. Many instructors provide a list of questions as critical response paragraph topics. Generally, if you can write an argumentative response to the prompt in one or two sentences, you’ve created a claim.

Most critical response paragraphs are between 7 and 10 sentences in length. Any shorter and you probably have not argued your point persuasively; any longer and you probably have lost focus and drifted outside the scope of your argument.

Format your paragraph using  MLA format, which is the format shown in the CRP Example .

Parenthetical Documentation

Always  document  the page number(s) you quote or paraphrase using MLA parenthetical documentation style. Your instructor may not require a works cited page, but most instructors do want to know from where the material is taken and that you can demonstrate proper documentation technique. Not documenting your sources risks plagiarism.

The “So what?” Test

Your topic sentence and your paragraph should be able to pass the  “So what?” test. In this case, the question “So what?” is meant to remind you that we are reading the story to figure out what it says about real people in real life. When you’re thinking of what to argue about the story, remember that stories mean to push you around, to make you think and feel certain things. What are those things, and how can you build an argument about one of them? If you can’t provide an answer, you may want to re-read the story with the connection to real life in mind.

Proofreading and Editing

Always  proofread, edit, and revise . Silly mistakes, awkward sentences, and poor grammar detract from the authority you are trying to create to prove your argument. They will also cost you points on your grade; but you can easily avoid losing these points with careful proofreading. Two very good ideas to help you revise your paragraph are to read it out loud to yourself and to have someone else, such as the Writing Lab, proofread it with you and help you improve it.

Introduction to Literature Copyright © by Judy Young is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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How to Write a Critical Response Essay: Step-by-Step Guide

Graduating without sharpening your critical thinking skills can be detrimental to your future career goals. To spare you the trouble, college teachers assign critical response tasks to prepare learners for making rational decisions.

Critical response papers also help professors assess the knowledge of each student on a relevant topic. They expect learners to conduct an in-depth analysis of each source and present their opinions based on the information they managed to retrieve.

This article aims to help students who have no idea how to write critical response essays. It offers insight into academic structuring, formatting, and editing rules. Here is our step-by-step recipe for writing a critical response essay.

What Is a Critical Response Essay?

The critical response essay displays the writer’s reaction to a written work. By elaborating on the content of a book, article, or play, you should discuss the author’s style and strategy for achieving the intended purpose. Ideally, the paper requires you to conduct a rhetorical analysis, interpret the text, and synthesize findings.

Instead of sharing somebody else’s solution on the subject matter, here you present your argumentation. Unlike a descriptive essay, this paper should demonstrate your strong expository skills. Often, a custom writing service can prove helpful if you find your evaluation essay time-consuming. Offering a value judgment about a specific topic takes time to acquire.

Another thing you should consider is not just focusing on the flaws. Though this is not a comparison and contrast essay, you must also reveal the strengths and present them without exaggeration. What matters is to develop your perspective on the work and how it affects the readership through implicit and explicit writing means.

Besides assessing your ability to develop coherent argumentation, professors will also grade your paper composition skills. They want to ensure you can critically reflect on various literature pieces. Hence, it’s essential to learn to analyze your topic thoroughly. This way, you gain a deep understanding and can organize a meaningful text.

Critical Response Essay & Other Essay Types

Standard essays contain three main segments: introduction, main body, and conclusion. But any other aspect beyond this vague outline differs depending on the assigned type. And while your critical response resembles an opinion essay since it expresses your viewpoint, you must distinguish it from other kinds.

For example, let’s consider a classification essay or a process essay. The first only lists the features of a particular object or several concepts to group them into categories. The second explains how something happens in chronological order and lists the phases of a concrete process. Hence, these variants are purely objective and lack personal reflection.

A narrative essay is more descriptive, with a focal point to tell a story. Furthermore, there’s the definition essay, an expository writing that provides information about a specific term. The writer, while showcasing their personal interpretation, must avoid criticism of the matter. Professional personal statement writers can provide assistance in creating the best essay that reflects the writer’s individual opinion.

Finally, though you can find some resemblances with an argumentative paper, critical responses comprise two parts. First, you quickly make an analytical summary of the original work and then offer a critique of the author’s writing. When drafting, it’s advisable to refrain from an informal essay format.

What Is the Structure of a Critical Response Essay?

The critical essay will have a typical structure consisting of five paragraphs. It is the most effective and easiest to follow. Here’s a brief demonstration of what you should include in each segment.

Introduction

The introductory paragraph reveals your main argument related to the analysis. You should also briefly summarize the piece to acquaint the reader with the text. The purpose of the introduction is to give context and show how you interpreted the literary work.

These paragraphs discuss the main themes in the book or article. In them, ensure you provide comments on the context, style, and layout. Moreover, include as many quotations from the first-hand text or other sources to support your interpretation.

However, finding memorable quotes and evidence in the original book can be challenging. If you have difficulties drafting a body paragraph, write your essay online with the help of a custom writing platform. These experts will help you show how you reached your conclusions.

This paragraph restates all your earlier points and how they make sense. Hence, try to bind all your comments together in an easily digestible way for your readers. The ultimate purpose is to help the audience understand your logic and unify the essay’s central idea with your interpretations.

Writing Steps of a Critical Response Essay

If you wonder how to write a critical response, remember that it takes time and proper planning. You will have to address multiple data, draft ideas, and rewrite your essay fast and efficiently. Follow the methods below to organize better and get a high grade without putting too much pressure on your shoulders.

1. Pick a Topic

Professors usually choose the topic and help you grasp the focus of the research. Yet, in some cases, you might be able to select a theme you like. When deciding, ensure the book can provide several arguments, concepts, or phenomena to review. You should also consider if there’s enough available data for analysis.

2. Research and Gather Information

This assignment means you cannot base your argumentation on personal beliefs and preferences. Instead, you must be flexible and accept different opinions from acknowledged scholarly sources. Moreover, ensure you have a reliable basis for your comments.

In short, avoid questionable resources and be accurate when referencing. Finding a single article claiming the concept or idea is correct and undisputable isn’t enough. You must read and consult various sources and conduct a meticulous examination.

3. Prepare the Outline

Define your claim or thesis statement and think of a “catch” sentence that will attract the reader’s attention. You must also consider titling an essay and giving background data and facts. At this stage, it’s also recommendable to establish the number of body segments. This step will help you get a more precise writing plan you will later reinforce with examples and evidence.

4. Start Rough Drafting

When writing your first draft, consider dedicating each section to a distinct argument or supporting evidence that proves your point. Cite and give credit as appropriate and ensure your text flows seamlessly and logically. Also, anticipate objections from opponents by including statements grounding your criticism.

5. Revise and Edit

Typically, your rough draft will require polishing. The best approach is to sleep on it to reevaluate its quality in detail. Check the relevance of your thesis statement and argumentation and ensure your work is free of spelling and grammatical mistakes. Also, your sentences should be concise and straight to the point, without irrelevant facts or fillers.

The Dos and Don’ts in Critical Response Essay Writing

Check your work against the following dos and don’ts for a perfect written piece.

• Pick an intriguing title.
• Cite each source, including quotations and theoretical information.
• Connect sentences by using transition words for an essay like “First,” “Second,” “Moreover,” or “Last” for a good flow.
• Start writing in advance because last-minute works suffer from poor argumentation and grammar.
• Each paragraph must contain an analysis of a different aspect.
• Use active verbs and dynamic nouns.
• Ask a friend or classmate to proofread your work and give constructive comments.
• Check the plagiarism level to ensure it’s free of copied content.
• Don’t exceed the specified word limit.
• Follow professional formatting guidelines.
• Your summary must be short and not introduce new information.
• Avoid clichés and overusing idioms.
• Add the cited bibliography at the end.

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• Persuasive Essay: a Comprehensive Guide & Help Source
• How to Write a News Story
• How to Write an Autobiography Essay: Guide for College Students
• A Foolproof Guide to Creating a Causal Analysis Essay

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1.3 Glance at Critical Response: Rhetoric and Critical Thinking

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Use words, images, and specific rhetorical terminology to understand, discuss, and analyze a variety of texts.
• Determine how genre conventions are shaped by audience, purpose, language, culture, and expectation.
• Distinguish among different types of rhetorical situations and communicate effectively within them.

Every day you find yourself in rhetorical situations and use rhetoric to communicate with and to persuade others, even though you might not realize you are doing it. For example, when you voice your opinion or respond to another’s opinion, you are thinking rhetorically. Your purpose is often to convince others that you have a valid opinion, and maybe even issue a call to action. Obviously, you use words to communicate and present your position. But you may communicate effectively through images as well.

Words and Images

Both words and images convey information, but each does so in significantly different ways. In English, words are written sequentially, from left to right. A look at a daily newspaper or web page reveals textual information further augmented by headlines, titles, subtitles, boldface, italics, white space, and images. By the time readers get to college, they have internalized predictive strategies to help them critically understand a variety of written texts and the images that accompany them. For example, you might be able to predict the words in a sentence as you are reading it. You also know the purpose of headers and other markers that guide you through the reading.

To be a critical reader, though, you need to be more than a good predictor. In addition to following the thread of communication, you need to evaluate its logic. To do that, you need to ask questions such as these as you consider the argument: Is it fair (i.e., unbiased)? Does it provide credible evidence? Does it make sense, or is it reasonably plausible? Then, based on what you have decided, you can accept or reject its conclusions. You may also consider alternative possibilities so that you can learn more. In this way, you read actively, searching for information and ideas that you understand and can use to further your own thinking, writing, and speaking. To move from understanding to critical awareness, plan to read a text more than once and in more than one way. One good strategy is to ask questions of a text rather than to accept the author’s ideas as fact. Another strategy is to take notes about your understanding of the passage. And another is to make connections between concepts in different parts of a reading. Maybe an idea on page 4 is reiterated on page 18. To be an active, engaged reader, you will need to build bridges that illustrate how concepts become part of a larger argument. Part of being a good reader is the act of building information bridges within a text and across all the related information you encounter, including your experiences.

With this goal in mind, beware of passive reading. If you ever have been reading and completed a page or paragraph and realized you have little idea of what you’ve just read, you have been reading passively or just moving your eyes across the page. Although you might be able to claim you “read” the material, you have not engaged with the text to learn from it, which is the point of reading. You haven’t built bridges that connect to other material. Remember, words help you make sense of the world, communicate in the world, and create a record to reflect on so that you can build bridges across the information you encounter.

Images, however, present a different set of problems for critical readers. Sometimes having little or no accompanying text, images require a different skill set. For example, in looking at a photograph or drawing, you find different information presented simultaneously. This presentation allows you to scan or stop anywhere in the image—at least theoretically. Because visual information is presented simultaneously, its general meaning may be apparent at a glance, while more nuanced or complicated meanings may take a long time to figure out. And even then, odds are these meanings will vary from one viewer to another.

In the well-known image shown in Figure 1.3 , do you see an old woman or a young woman? Although the image remains static, your interpretation of it may change depending on any number of factors, including your experience, culture, and education. Once you become aware of the two perspectives of this image, you can see the “other” easily. But if you are not told about the two ways to “see” it, you might defend a perspective without realizing that you are missing another one. Most visuals, however, are not optical illusions; less noticeable perspectives may require more analysis and may be more influenced by your cultural identity and the ways in which you are accustomed to interpreting. In any case, this image is a reminder to have an open mind and be willing to challenge your perspectives against your interpretations. As such, like written communication, images require analysis before they can be understood thoroughly and evaluation before they can be judged on a wider scale.

If you have experience with social media, you may be familiar with the way users respond to images or words by introducing another image: the meme . A meme is a photograph containing text that presents one viewer’s response. The term meme originates from the Greek root mim , meaning “mime” or “mimic,” and the English suffix -eme . In the 1970s, British evolutionary biologist and author Richard Dawkins (b. 1941) created the term for use as “a unit of cultural transmission,” and he understood it to be “the cultural equivalent of a gene.” Today, according to the dictionary definition, memes are “amusing or interesting items that spread widely through the Internet.” For example, maybe you have seen a meme of an upset cat or of a friend turning around to look at something else while another friend is relating something important. The text that accompanies these pictures provides some expression on the part of the originator that the audience usually finds humorous, relatable, or capable of arousing any range of emotion or thought. For example, in the photograph shown in Figure 1.4 of a critter standing at attention, the author of the text conveys anxiousness. The use of the word like has been popularized in the meme genre to mean “to give an example.”

While these playful aspects of images are important, you also should recognize how images fit into the rhetorical situation. Consider the same elements, such as context and genre, when viewing images. You may find multiple perspectives to consider. In addition, where images show up in a text or for an audience might be important. These are all aspects of understanding the situation and thinking critically. Engaged readers try to connect and build bridges to information across text and images.

As you consider your reading and viewing experiences on social media and elsewhere, note that your responses involve some basic critical thinking strategies. Some of these include summary, paraphrase, analysis, and evaluation, which are defined in the next section. The remaining parts of this chapter will focus on written communication. While this chapter touches only briefly on visual discourse, Image Analysis: What You See presents an extensive discussion on visual communication.

Relation to Academics

As with all disciplines, rhetoric has its own vocabulary. What follows are key terms, definitions, and elements of rhetoric. Become familiar with them as you discuss and write responses to the various texts and images you will encounter.

• Analysis : detailed breakdown or other explanation of some aspect or aspects of a text. Analysis helps readers understand the meaning of a text.
• Authority : credibility; background that reflects experience, knowledge, or understanding of a situation. An authoritative voice is clear, direct, factual, and specific, leaving an impression of confidence.
• Context : setting—time and place—of the rhetorical situation. The context affects the ways in which a particular social, political, or economic situation influences the process of communication. Depending on context, you may need to adapt your text to audience background and knowledge by supplying (or omitting) information, clarifying terminology, or using language that best reaches your readers.
• Culture : group of people who share common beliefs and lived experiences. Each person belongs to various cultures, such as a workplace, school, sports team fan, or community.
• Evaluation : systematic assessment and judgment based on specific and articulated criteria, with a goal to improve understanding.
• Evidence : support or proof for a fact, opinion, or statement. Evidence can be presented as statistics, examples, expert opinions, analogies, case studies, text quotations, research in the field, videos, interviews, and other sources of credible information.
• Media literacy : ability to create, understand, and evaluate various types of media; more specifically, the ability to apply critical thinking skills to them.
• Meme : image (usually) with accompanying text that calls for a response or elicits a reaction.
• Paraphrase : rewording of original text to make it clearer for readers. When they are part of your text, paraphrases require a citation of the original source.
• Rhetoric : use of effective communication in written, visual, or other forms and understanding of its impact on audiences as well as of its organization and structure.
• Rhetorical situation : instance of communication; the conditions of a communication and the agents of that communication.
• Social media : all digital tools that allow individuals or groups to create, post, share, or otherwise express themselves in a public forum. Social media platforms publish instantly and can reach a wide audience.
• Summary : condensed account of a text or other form of communication, noting its main points. Summaries are written in one’s own words and require appropriate attribution when used as part of a paper.
• Tone : an author’s projected or perceived attitude toward the subject matter and audience. Word choice, vocal inflection, pacing, and other stylistic choices may make the author sound angry, sarcastic, apologetic, resigned, uncertain, authoritative, and so on.

As you read through these terms, you likely recognize most of them and realize you are adept in some rhetorical situations. For example, when you talk with friends about your trip to the local mall, you provide details they will understand. You might refer to previous trips or tell them what is on sale or that you expect to see someone from school there. In other words, you understand the components of the rhetorical situation. However, if you tell your grandparents about the same trip, the rhetorical situation will be different, and you will approach the interaction differently. Because the audience is different, you likely will explain the event with more detail to address the fact that they don’t go to the mall often, or you will omit specific details that your grandparents will not understand or find interesting. For instance, instead of telling them about the video game store, you might tell them about the pretzel café.

As part of your understanding of the rhetorical situation, you might summarize specific elements, again depending on the intended audience. You might speak briefly about the pretzel café to your friends but spend more time detailing the various toppings for your grandparents. If, by chance, you have previously stopped to have a pretzel, you might provide your analysis and evaluation of the service and the food. Once again, you are engaged in rhetoric by showing an understanding of and the ability to develop a strategy for approaching a particular rhetorical situation. The point is to recognize that rhetorical situations differ, depending, in this case, on the audience. Awareness of the rhetorical situation applies to academic writing as well. You change your presentation, tone, style, and other elements to fit the conditions of the situation.

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Introduction

Goals and Goal Setting

Goals Common to All RST Writers

Other Goals to Consider

Defining My Own Goals

Advice about Assignments

Getting Started: Listing Topics to Write about in the Tutorial

Narrative One: Personal Piece on a Significant Experience

Narrative Two: Academic Piece on a Significant Experience

Summary/Response One

Summary/Response Two

Tutorial Evaluation Postscript

On Using the Resources for Writers

Generating and Developing Ideas

Finding/Expressing Main Ideas

Showing v. Telling Sentences

Focusing Topic Sentences

Thesis Statements

Reading Strategies

Assessing Your Reading Strategies

Summarizing

Writing Effective Summary and Response Essays

Discourse Analysis Worksheet

Trade Magazines

Selecting Readings

A summary is a concise paraphrase of all the main ideas in an essay. It cites the author and the title (usually in the first sentence); it contains the essay's thesis and supporting ideas; it may use direct quotation of forceful or concise statements of the author's ideas; it will NOT usually cite the author's examples or supporting details unless they are central to the main idea. Most summaries present the major points in the order that the author made them and continually refer back to the article being summarized (i.e. "Damon argues that ..." or "Goodman also points out that ... "). The summary should take up no more than one-third the length of the work being summarized.

The Response:

A response is a critique or evaluation of the author's essay. Unlike the summary, it is composed of YOUR opinions in relation to the article being summarized. It examines ideas that you agree or disagree with and identifies the essay's strengths and weaknesses in reasoning and logic, in quality of supporting examples, and in organization and style. A good response is persuasive; therefore, it should cite facts, examples, and personal experience that either refutes or supports the article you're responding to, depending on your stance.

Two Typical Organizational Formats for Summary/Response Essays:

1. Present the summary in a block of paragraphs, followed by the response in a block:

Intro/thesis Summary (two to three paragraphs) Agreement (or disagreement) Disagreement (or agreement) Conclusion

Note: Some essays will incorporate both agreement and disagreement in a response, but this is not mandatory.

2. Introduce the essay with a short paragraph that includes your thesis. Then, each body paragraph summarizes one point and responds to it, and a conclusion wraps the essay up.

Intro/thesis Summary point one; agree/disagree Summary point two; agree/disagree Summary point three; agree/disagree Conclusion

Critical Response Essay: Topics, Examples & How to Write

If you’ve ever read an exhaustive review of a movie or a book, you already know what a critical response essay looks like. This assignment requires you to reflect on a writing piece, film, play, or other art product. The point is to analyze the work and express your attitude toward its content and form.

This article will teach you how to write a critical response essay on different texts. You’ll also find some topic ideas and an example of this paper type.

🔤 What Is a Critical Response Essay?

💡 response essay topics.

• ✍️ How to Write a Critical Response

📝 Critical Response Essay Example

📚 more critical response examples, 🔗 references.

A critical response essay is a written assignment in which you should analyze someone’s work. The subject of your analysis can be a book, a piece of poetry , a short story, a scholarly article, a film, a song, and many more.

You might wonder what the “critical” part of a critical response essay means. It doesn’t imply that you should harshly judge the writing piece. Rather, you need to evaluate a text, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses. For example, you can analyze whether the author used enough convincing evidence to support the main point.

A critical response essay usually includes the following elements: an introduction, summary, analysis, response, and conclusion.

The first step in creating an essay is to decide what to write about. Below you’ll find a list of interesting topics to inspire you. However, if none of these ideas meets your demands, you can try our topic generator.

• Is Shakespeare’s King Lear insane?
• Is peace or success more critical in The Great Gatsby by F. S. Fitzgerald?
• Allegory and symbolism in “ Everyday Use” by Alice Walker.
• Women’s challenges in “The Story of an Hour.”
• Ravenscroft’s use of irony in Careless Lovers to reveal society’s wrongs.
• The symbolic meaning of the devil in Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown.”
• How did Tim O’Brien express the theme of morality in The Things They Carried ?
• The meaning of “hero” in The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien.
• The American Dream in The Death of a Salesman .
• A caretaker’s conflict in “Daddy Issues ” by Sandra Tsing Loh.
• Was Hamlet’s revenge the right decision?
• Shakespeare’s Macbeth as a reference to the Christian fall of man.
• How did Mark Twain depict racism in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ?
• Would Hucklebery Finn make a good man?
• What is the tragedy in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex ?
• What is the most acute issue highlighted in Nella Larsen’s Passing ?
• The press and the government in The Making of a Quagmire by David Halberstam.
• The Thousand and One Nights as a reflection of Middle East culture.
• Poverty in Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.
• Gender issues raised in Othello by Shakespeare.
• Can The Glass Menagerie be considered a classical tragedy?
• The Chinese and American female characters in Joy Luck Club .
• The Epic of Gilgamesh : Can the opposites be partners?
• Egocentrism in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find. ”
• The fragility of the family institution in Williams’ The Glass Menagerie .
• Does the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People answer how to achieve success?
• Franz Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” : Does Gregor Zamza deserve pity or compassion?
• The issue of a social outsider in “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner .
• “The Story of an Hour” : Is every marriage doomed?
• The god complex in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

✍️ How to Write a Critical Response Essay

A critical response essay has the following format:

• Introduction.
• Conclusion.

Below we will look at how to write a critical response essay step by step.

Critical Response Introduction

An introduction is your chance to make an excellent first impression on a reader. Here is a detailed breakdown of what it should include:

• Details about the analyzed work . In the first sentence, provide the author’s name and the title of the work you will write about.
• Relevant background information . Explain what the analyzed writing piece is about and provide the relevant context.
• The author’s thesis statement . Mention what argument the author makes and what key points are used to support it.
• Your thesis statement . The last sentence of your introduction should include your main argument about the analyzed work. Avoid simply agreeing or disagreeing with the author’s thesis. Instead, highlight the evaluated text’s strengths and weaknesses or focus on particular aspects, such as characters, style, literary devices, etc.

As the name implies, critical response summary part should summarize your selected work in a few paragraphs. Here are some tips for you to write this section:

• Explain the author’s purpose — why did they create this work?
• Summarize the author’s main points used to support the argument.
• Do not use direct quotes ; instead, paraphrase key points from the source.
• Do not provide your opinion — you’ll get a chance to do it in the later sections.

While the previous section looked at what the author wrote, this one will examine how the author expressed their point.

Here are some questions to guide your analysis. You should choose only those that fit your essay purpose and the analyzed piece:

• Has the author reached their writing goal (persuading, informing, explaining, etc.)?
• How unbiased and precise was the piece?
• What literary devices have you noticed?
• Were the author’s arguments strong enough?
• Are there any logical flaws in the writing?
• What is the author’s tone?

The analysis section should include direct quotes from the original text. They should be relevant to the point you make. After introducing a quotation, explain it and link it to your main argument.

Finally, you’ve reached the point where your opinion is required .

In this section, you should present your well-thought-out evaluation of the source. For example, if you’ve been analyzing an argumentative essay , explain whether you found it convincing enough and why. When assessing an informative article, say whether it gave you a good grasp of the topic and what particular text features made it simple for you to understand.

Consider these tips when writing a personal response section:

• Make sure you express your opinion to the fullest.
• Reflect on particular elements rather than an entire work.
• Use strong evidence to support your point of view.
• Organize your ideas in logical order.
• Tie your response to your thesis statement.

The conclusion of your critical analysis essay should include the following:

• Restated thesis. Start your final paragraph by paraphrasing your thesis statement.
• Summary of the points discussed. Remind the reader of your main ideas.
• Closing statement. Suggest a prompt that will make your readers think further about your argument.

Now, let’s look at a critical response essay example.

In his famous speech given at Stanford in 2005, Steeve Jobs gave valuable advice to Stanford graduates. The author’s main point is that if people want to accomplish their goals, they should be passionate. While I agree with this view, I will argue that one of the key themes permeating this speech is hope and faith.

The author shares three stories from his life. The first story is about dropping out of college. The second is about the lessons Jobs learned when he was fired from Apple. Finally, the third story deals with the author’s reflections on death.

While this talk is mainly about passion for one’s work, it also deals with the issues of hope and faith. This theme can be traced throughout the speech. For example, in the first story, Jobs says that people should “connect the dots.” It means that life is not a random sequence of events. Whatever difficulties arise, they serve some purpose, so people should never lose faith in a better future.

For me, this speech sounds hopeful and inspiring. I agree with Job’s view that passion is vital, but even more, I support his emphasis on the role of hope and faith. Jobs showed that his ability not to lose hope guided him through hard times. For example, Jobs’ dismissal was a devastating experience for him, but he realized that it was a new start for him, and he was able to move on.

In conclusion, hope and faith in a better future are one of the main themes of Jobs’ speech at Stanford. The speaker showed how being hopeful has helped him survive the darkest moments. Therefore, people should not give up whenever life throws challenges at them.

Do you want some more critical response examples? Below, we’ve included two sample responses to a non-fiction article and a fiction work. Check them out!

Critical Response to an Article Example

The following critical response example is based on an article published in Time. Check it out to learn how to respond to non-fiction.

In his article entitled "Conspiracy Theories, Class Tension, Political Intrigue," Maurice Samuels draws a parallel between the French government's mishandling of the cholera crisis in 1832 and the US government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Samuels believes that leadership failures increase societal tensions and create the way for political revolution. His analysis is a powerful reminder of the critical role that strong and united leadership plays in dealing with public health crises.

The article discusses the 1832 cholera outbreak in Paris, highlighting the government's ineffective response and the public's anger. It also examines the June Rebellion and the Duchesse de Berry's coup attempt, which failed because of public indifference. The author links the Paris cholera outbreak to the recent coronavirus pandemic in the US, arguing that leaders should prioritize transparency and openness to scientific advice.

On the one hand, the author emphasizes the importance of effective leadership and a unified response to public health crises, which makes this article relevant to the coronavirus situation in the US. On the other hand, the article could be more specific in analyzing the consequences of President Trump's actions, providing more examples of what a leader should do in a crisis.

I found the article both informative and thought-provoking. The author profoundly understands the history of epidemics and their impact on society. The article also raises important questions about leadership and public health policy. I agree with the author's conclusion that we need leaders who are willing to put the needs of their citizens first and who are not afraid to make tough decisions.

The article is a valuable contribution to discussing the pandemic and its broader societal implications. It highlights the importance of strong, united leadership in managing public health crises and preventing societal unrest. This article reminds us that even in an emergency, we must learn from our past mistakes to ensure a bright and healthy future.

Critical Response Paper Example for Fiction

Here, we have prepared a critical response essay to Fahrenheit 451 written by Ray Bradbury.

In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury outlines a dystopian future in which books are prohibited, and firemen are responsible for burning them. The novel warns about the dangers of censorship and the importance of freedom of speech. It raises questions about the role of government and the nature of knowledge and explores issues that are still relevant today.

The novel is about Guy Montag, a fireman who burns books for a living. Montag is a kind and polite man, but at the same time, he is unsatisfied with his job. He begins to doubt the government's policy of burning books and finally begins stealing and reading books secretly. He joins a group of rebels who teach him about the importance of books and the dangers of censorship. Eventually, Montag and the rebels defeat the government, establishing a society where books are allowed and people can think freely.

The novel effectively uses vivid imagery, symbols, and strong characters to create a suspenseful story. Bradbury's setting creates a familiar and strange world, with characters like Montag and others. However, the text still needs more depth and complexity in some characters, particularly the protagonist, Guy Montag.

I found Fahrenheit 451 an exciting and insightful novel since it allows the reader to rediscover the significance of reading through Montag's journey. I was particularly struck by the novel's depiction of censorship and the rebels' victory, which shows that it is possible to fight against censorship and preserve freedom of speech.

To summarize, Fahrenheit 451 is a well-written work that sends a message to humans about the value of knowledge and identity in a society that is easily corrupted by ignorance and censorship. The novel is still relevant in today’s world because it reminds us that the fight for free thought is an eternal one, waged not just on battlefields but in the quiet corners of every mind.

Other Critical Response Essay Examples

Find out other examples of critical responses below:

• Analysis of “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King Jr. Essay Example
• “Why We Need Violent Video Games” by Gilsdorf Essay Example
• Mukherjee’s “Two Ways to Belong in America” Response Essay Example
• A Critical Appraisal of Two Qualitative Research Studies | Healthcare Paper Example

Now you know the secrets of writing an excellent critical response essay. So, feel free to start writing! Once you have done the assignment, listen to how your essay sounds with our text-to-speech tool. It will help you spot where your paper needs improvements.

• Guidelines for the Process for Critical Response | University of Michigan
• Writing a Response or Reaction Paper | Hunter College
• Writing Critical Analysis Papers | JSIS Writing Center
• Writing a Critical Response | University of Richmond
• Advice on Writing and Revising Critical Essays | Williams College

Film Analysis: Example, Format, and Outline + Topics & Prompts

Demoessays review: free political science essay samples.

Response Essay Examples

A response essay is a sub-genre of critical writing. It describes your impressions from a book, movie, art, music, research paper, or any other creation. Its distinctive feature is the unlimited subjectivity allowing you to express whatever emotions the analyzed object has evoked. It is the main difference from a standard critical essay which is more objective and requires argumentation.

The structure of a response essay is not too strict. Still, it usually consists of two parts: source overview and personal response to the reading.

Below you can find an extensive list of response essay examples. Please be sure to reference the source whenever you decide to quote any part of them.

75 Best Response Essay Examples

“supersize your child” by richard hayes.

• Subjects: Evolution of Humans Sciences
• Words: 1189

Richard Hayes: Supersize Your Child

• Words: 1210

Applying Learning Models in a Particular Setting

• Subjects: Education Learning Challenges
• Words: 1167

Indecent Behavior in Moral Standards

• Subjects: Ethics Sociology

Lady Anne Clifford’s Life and Family

• Subjects: British Literature Literature
• Words: 1414

Students’ Creativity: Imagination

• Subjects: Education Study Courses and Education Programs

Propaganda in the Democratic Society

• Subjects: Entertainment & Media Journalism

The Negative Consequences of Employing High School Students in Fast Food Restaurants

• Subjects: Business Management

Monstrous and Human Relationship in “The Odyssey”

• Subjects: Literature Plays

“The Odyssey”: The Relationship Between the Monstrous and the Human

Culture and business practices in asia.

• Subjects: Business Employees Management

Kant’s Prolegomena Concerning Any Future Metaphysics

• Subjects: Philosophical Theories Philosophy
• Words: 2271

Relationship Between Body and Consciousness by Jean-Paul Sartre

• Subjects: Philosophical Concept Philosophy
• Words: 1407

Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng: The Plum in the Golden Vase

• Subjects: Literature World Literature
• Words: 1678

The Church as a Forgiving Community

• Subjects: Religion Religion, Culture & Society

“Integrative Approaches to Psychology and Christianity” by David N. Entwistle

Family and marriage therapy.

• Subjects: Family Psychology Psychology
• Words: 1898

Jackson and His Environment

• Subjects: Behavior Psychology
• Words: 2212

Death Penalty Role in the Criminal Justice System

• Subjects: Politics & Government Social & Political Theory

Job Analysis and Selection

Leading with soul response.

• Words: 1147

Explanation of Cancer Disease

• Subjects: Health & Medicine Oncology

“The Thatcher Revolution” by Earl A. Reitan

• Subjects: History Western Europe
• Words: 1900

Leadership and Communication

Animals with rich histories.

• Subjects: Environment Environmental Studies

Psychology, Theology, and Spirituality in Christian Counseling

• Subjects: Literature on Religion Religion
• Words: 1152

Satellite Dishes Company Marketing Process

• Subjects: Business Marketing

Empowerment of Students for Their Motivation

• Subjects: Academic Performance Education

A Global Health Discussion: Ebola

• Subjects: Epidemiology Health & Medicine

Americans With Disabilities Act

• Subjects: Interpersonal Communication Episodes Psychology

“What is Academic Language?” by James Paul Gee

• Subjects: American Literature Literature

“Revisiting the Commons: Local Lessons, Global Challenges”

• Subjects: Ecology Environment

Climate Change and Corporate World

• Subjects: Climate Change Environment
• Words: 1139

Vision for Your Teaching and Learning & Role as a Teacher-Leader or Teacher-Researcher

• Subjects: Education Teacher Career
• Words: 1129

Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) in Reducing the Effects of Climate Change

• Subjects: Disasters Environment

Slaughterhouse-Five Movie Analysis

• Subjects: Art Film Studies

Overcoming the Tyranny of Segregated Minds in Desegregated Schools

• Subjects: Education Education Issues

Living Buddha, Living Christ

Experience of reggio emilia critique.

• Subjects: Education Education System

The Art of Pastoring

• Subjects: Religion Religious Education
• Words: 3679

History From the Inside Out: Prison Life in Nineteenth-Century by L. Goldsmith

• Subjects: History United States

Gender Violence in the News

• Subjects: Sociology Violence
• Words: 1195

The End of History: Views of the Philosophers

• Words: 1963

Antecedents and Outcomes of Entrepreneurial and Market Orientations in a Non-Profit Context

Children in at-risk families.

• Subjects: Family, Life & Experiences Parenting

Families With Members Who Experience Disabilities

• Subjects: Family Members Family, Life & Experiences

“The Experience of Space and Time”

Positivism and interpretivism.

• Subjects: Sciences Scientific Method

Team Learning as a Way of Education

• Subjects: Challenges of Psychology Psychology

Japanese Soldiers in the World War II

• Subjects: Asia History

Origins of Religion

• Words: 1384

Napoleon Bonaparte in his study

• Subjects: Art Paintings
• Words: 1105

System Thinking: Contributing to the Learning Organization

• Subjects: Business Management Priorities

Using Leadership to Improve Ethical Performance

• Subjects: Business Business Ethics
• Words: 1234

Hispanic Americans: Racial Status

• Subjects: Immigration Sociology

Race and Ethnic Relations: American and Global Perspective

• Subjects: Culture Ethnicity Studies

“With Training and Development for All” by Goodman and Preston

• Subjects: Business Global Scale Management

Why No Apple in Europe?

• Subjects: Social Movements Sociology

Last Night I dreamt of Peace

• Subjects: Historical Figures History

Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs Mary Rowlandson

Three cups of tea, insights on green automotive development.

• Subjects: Engineering Tech & Engineering

Capitalism: A Love Story: A Reflective Paper

• Subjects: Economic Systems & Principles Economics

Ethnography Reflection

• Subjects: Anthropology Sciences
• Words: 1710

Misery – Anton Chekhov. Analysis of Summary and Themes

• Subjects: Dramatic Literature Literature

Infantile Sexuality: Thumb Sucking

• Subjects: Development Psychology

Pride and Arrogance in the “Oedipus the King” by Sophocles

The corporation & our media, not theirs.

• Subjects: Documentaries Entertainment & Media
• Words: 1109

Maldoror and the Completed Works of the Comte de Lautréamont

• Words: 1390

Folklore: Contemporary Legends

• Subjects: Literature Modernist Literature
• Words: 1641

Gods and Humans: Myths of Ancient Rome and Greece

• Subjects: Comparative Literature Literature

Summary: James Wertsch’s “The Multivoicedness of Meaning”.

Social networks benefits and disadvantages.

• Subjects: Sociological Issues Sociology
• Words: 1122

The Problem of Global Overpopulation

Molto agitato: the mayhem behind the music at the metropolitan opera.

• Subjects: Art Music Industry
• Words: 1112

How to Write a Critical Analysis Essay: Examples & Guide

A critical analysis essay is an academic paper that requires a thorough examination of theoretical concepts and ideas. It includes a comparison of facts, differentiation between evidence and argument, and identification of biases.

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Crafting a good paper can be a daunting experience, but it will be much easier if you have the right approach. In this guide by our custom writing team, you will find:

• Different types of critical analysis;
• Best ways to structure your essay;
• Two excellent critical analysis essay examples.
• 📝 Critical Analysis Definition
• ✍️ Writing Guide
• ✅ Critical Analysis Types
• 📑 Examples & Tips

📝 What Is a Critical Analysis?

Criticism is the process of appraising things such as works of art and literature. It comes from the word meaning “able to make judgments”. A critical analysis essay is often referred to as a critical thinking essay, critical response paper, critical evaluation essay, and summary and response essay.

When we hear the word “criticism,” we often associate it with negative judgments. However, to criticize doesn’t necessarily mean to find faults. Even though criticism involves active disagreement, it strives to understand the meaning further and evaluate its efficiency. We call it constructive criticism .

In other words, critical analysis is an evaluation of a piece of work that promotes its better understanding . Have a look at this comparison and see what critical analysis is and what it isn’t:

Aside from art and literature, critical analysis is often used in theoretical research, nursing, and social work. In any of these areas, you have an opportunity to exercise your critical faculties.

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Analysis in Writing: Definition & Examples

Analysis is a step you take before writing any paper. It’s aimed at evaluating and interpreting the sources. To do it, you break them down and study them in detail. You can learn more from this article on critical analysis by Southeastern Louisiana University .

In the following table, we’ve compiled several forms of analysis in writing and illustrated each type with a topic example:

What Is the Difference between Summary and Analysis?

Students often confuse analysis with summary and get a lower grade as a result. Here is how two notions differ. A summary is a brief restatement of the text’s main points that involves paraphrasing. An analysis is a detailed examination of the evidence that uncovers something new.

Check out this comparison to understand the difference better:

✍️ How to Write a Critical Analysis Essay

Now, we will show you the steps to writing a critical analysis with examples to guide you through this process. Keep in mind that the purpose of your critical analysis paper is to help readers understand a subject to a full extent.

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Critical analysis consists of two stages: critical reading and critical writing. Read on to learn more about them.

Critical Reading Examples & Definition

Critical reading a technique that involves discovering and evaluating the text’s meaning and incorporating it into what you already know. It’s the first stage of critical analysis.

According to Cleveland State University, critical reading occurs after you’ve skimmed the research material and decided where to focus your efforts. While you are reading, use the following techniques to stay on track:

• Determine the central claim and identify how it is argued;
• Look for the large patterns that give purpose, order, and meaning to arguments;
• Contextualize the text within an original historical, political, or religious context;
• Distinguish the kinds of reasoning and methodology the text employs;
• Examine the evidence;
• Recognize manipulations.

When it comes to recognizing manipulations, authors use three persuasive appeals to convince their readers of something: ethos , pathos , and logos .

Now, let’s apply the critical reading techniques to an actual text:

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The death estimates during the US invasions of Tokyo were exaggerated by a factor of ten to twenty. The wartime casualty estimates were based on inaccurate assumptions. The data was not updated to exclude the civilians’ deaths and justify the strategic decision to drop off an atomic bomb.

• What is the text saying?  US bombs killed up to two million people.
• What is the text doing?  The death estimates were exaggerated to downplay the casualties and emphasize the importance of dropping the atomic bomb.

When you are able to recognize these persuasive modes in your reading, you can master them in writing.

What Is Critical Writing: Definition & Techniques

Critical writing is a process of commenting on another piece of work using several writing strategies. It is the second stage of critical analysis.

Want to know how to write critically? Have a look at the following tips:

• Take a critical stance: recognize that every text comes from a perspective and is subject to interpretation.
• Pay close attention: look not only for the facts but also for explanations.
• Think big picture : put your sources in context with the time it was written.
• Bring yourself in: consider the connections between several texts and add your own perspective.

When it comes to the critical writing, certain strategies can be beneficial. Yet, others are better to avoid. We’ve compiled the most important dos and don’ts in the table below:

Want to learn more? Check out our article on critical writing .

Critical Analysis Essay Topics: How to Choose

Now that you’ve learned about critical analysis, there is a big question to answer: how do you choose the topic for your essay? It might require using a specific strategy to make the right choice.

Many students find it helpful to have a list of critical thinking questions to answer while brainstorming. We’ve prepared them for you:

• Theme : How well does the author approach the central theme? Are the arguments strong enough?
• Organization : Is this piece of work well-structured and easy to follow?
• Audience : Who is the audience? Are there any manipulations the author is using to persuade the reader?
• Tone : Is there a specific tone used by the author throughout their work? How does it affect the reader?
• Bias and informational gaps : Does the author look at their work from several angles? Are there any contradicting arguments or missing information?
• Word choice : Does the author invent new words? Is the vocabulary serious or silly, casual or technical? How does it affect the overall writing?
• Logos : Does the author use logic to prove their point?
• Ethos : Does the author have any proof of their credibility? Do they claim to be an expert? In what ways is the reader’s trust gained?
• Pathos : Does the author use emotion to connect with the reader? Does the writing appeal to common beliefs and values?

Answering these questions will help you with deciding on critical thinking essay topics. If you want some additional inspiration, feel free to use our topic generator .

Critical Analysis Template

After carefully analyzing all of your sources, you can start writing your first draft using our critical analysis template. Use this outline to structure your essay and to ensure your arguments are related to your thesis.

How to Start a Critical Analysis Essay

To create an outstanding opening paragraph, you may want to start it with a hook. It can be a quote from your source or a rhetorical question. Be sure to make it catchy so that it will grab your reader’s attention.

After you’re done with the hook, write the following:

• the work’s title and some background information,
• an outline of the main ideas from your sources,
• your thesis statement.

Here are two introduction examples for your inspiration:

What happens when there is a considerable wage gap between the upper and middle classes? The unsurprising reality forces poor people to use credit cards to pay off their debt. Credit card industries collect interest from those who can’t pay off their debt right away.

A romantic novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen is about overcoming social stereotypes in the name of love. Its main character, Elizabeth Bennet, has to fight against her discrimination against wealthy men like Mr. Darcy to find love and be happy.

Critical Analysis Essay: Thesis

A thesis statement is what you are aiming to prove. Ideally, it should be the first thing you write because every other part of your critical analysis paper will be connected to it.

To create a strong thesis statement, you want to start with a broader idea of what you would like to critique. Then, you narrow it down. Choose a debatable thesis so you can back it up with evidence from your sources and anchor your entire paper around it.

The examples below will help you write your essay’s thesis:

People in positions of power are less likely to recognize the social injustice than marginalized groups of the civilian population.

In a 1989 American superhero film Batman, Tim Burton subverts the concept of heroism by refraining Batman from murder and making him morally ambiguous.

Critical Analysis Essays: Summary and Response

The body paragraphs of a critical essay consist of your source’s summary and a response with arguments.

A summary should present specific facts from your source to help your reader understand your arguments better. You can use these sentence starters to structure a summary:

• The book is about…
• The theme of the article is…
• The author argues that…
• The author concludes…
• The main character is…
• The main points are…

The main plot of Elizabeth Bennet’s plan to save her family from poverty intersects with stereotypes that romantic love and marriage don’t go together. She does not accept a marriage proposal from Mr. Darcy because she does not want to be walking proof that women marry for money. The rejected proposal leads Darcy to open up and change Elizabeth’s perception of him.

A response should present your main arguments that support your thesis statement. Each argument is a sub-thesis that connects to your central thesis. It’s crucial to discuss each point in detail and prove it with strong evidence.

Your arguments should be:

• clear, informative, and persuasive;
• well-researched and backed up with solid evidence;
• connected to your thesis.

At first, Elizabeth Bennet sees Mr. Darcy only as a powerful man with wealth and high social status. For her, he represents a marriage of convenience that she is so desperately trying to fight against. After Mr. Darcy attempts to separate Jane and Bingley, Elizabeth gets proof for her ideas about powerful men who do everything in their power to destroy a loving relationship for a better financial suit.

Critical Essay Outline: Conclusion

The final stage of essay writing is to ensure you have proven your arguments. The goal of your conclusion is to remind the reader of your thesis and the essay’s main points. You may also want to leave them with some final statements for consideration.

Keep in mind that the concluding paragraph is not a place to introduce new evidence. Instead, you can do the following:

• Restate your thesis;
• Summarize your main ideas;
• Talk about the work’s overall performance or outcome;
• Identify potential opportunities for further research or investigation.

Elizabeth Bennet struggles with the societal association of marriage with financial stability. Eventually, she marries a rich man, Mr. Darcy, but she marries him for love rather than his money and social status. Her pride and prejudice towards him were destroyed by his acts of kindness and true love. Their relationship had a rough start, but both of them could get their happy ending by breaking out of old beliefs and habits.

✅ Types of Critical Analysis

Choosing the correct type of analysis will help you stay on track with your research objectives. It will give you the anchor to develop your essay around in a systematic manner.

Critical analysis can be categorized into 4 main types:

• Literary analysis gives a critical evaluation of a literary text.
• Article analysis reflects upon arguments presented in an article.
• Media analysis essay interprets messages conveyed through visual media, music, or radio.
• Cultural analysis interprets cultural phenomena and practices.

Literary Analysis: Definition & Characteristics

Literary analysis is an argument that expresses one’s critical evaluation of a poem, novel, short story, or play. A critique of literature has the same characteristics as other types of critical essays. The difference is the kind of information you can include in this type of essay.

Here’s how to analyze literature:

You will find more interesting info in our article on literary analysis essays .

How to Write an Analysis of an Article

Critical analysis of an article aims to analyze the writing strategies and techniques an author uses to develop their argument. The process is a little different than persuading the reader to accept a particular point of view. Here is a sample outline:

Critical Film Analysis: Types & How to Write

Film analysis goes beyond the plot structure and includes composition elements such as camera work, lighting, costume choices, etc. After watching the film at least twice, you can select what type of film analysis you will be performing. Check out the types and see what they’re about:

• Semiotic analysis involves interpretation of signs and symbols within a film.
• Narrative analysis examines the story the film seeks to tell.
• Historical analysis is an examination of a film’s relationship to a cultural or historical context.
• Mise-en-scène analysis is an analysis of compositional elements used in a scene or a single shot.

Once you’ve chosen a topic, use this outline to guide you through the writing process:

You can learn more from our article on film analysis .

How to Write a Cultural Analysis Essay

Critical analysis essay refers to your comment upon one specific cultural aspect that works or doesn’t work in a society. After you’ve chosen a topic for your cultural analysis paper, you can start drafting your outline. Here is how the structure of this kind of paper differs from others:

Critical Analysis Essay Topics

• Critical analysis of qualitative research article. 
• Rhetorical analysis of articles on qualitative studies in healthcare.  
• American Exodus by James N. Gregory: Rhetorical Analysis. 
• Critical analysis of religion and faith .  
• Analyze the sonnet My Mistress’ Eyes by W. Shakespeare .  
• Critical essay on issues of cognitive neuroscience.  
• A Doll House as an example of feminist literature: rhetorical analysis.  
• Conduct a comparative critical analysis of Judaism and Christianity.  
• Rhetorical analysis of an Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf .  
• Semantic meaning of The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath .  
• Critical evaluation of Seligman articles.  
• Analyze psychological literature based on A Clean, Well-Lighted Place by E. Hemingway.  
• Rhetorical analysis of literary devices and expressive means in A Good Man Is Hard to Find .  
• Analyze the characteristic features of drama using the example of Death of a Salesman .  
• Critical analysis of the most popular business strategies .  
• Discuss the problem of childhood obesity in Active Living by Van Kann.  
• Analyze IT strategies and planning.  
• Critical analysis of a controversial art using the example of Home by Yann Arthus-Bertrand.  
• Emotional impact of comedy films.  
• Rhetorical analysis of Sophocles’ Antigone as an example of Greek drama.  
• Influence of Socrate’s philosophy on the ancient Greek playwrights.  
• Critical analysis of Sophocles’ plays.  
• Different sets of values in Everyday Use by A. Walker .  
• Analysis of corporate crimes using the example of Lehman Brothers’ scandal.  
• Critical analysis of a scientific article based on Nursing Pain Management .  
• Different interpretations of A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor. 
• Critical analysis of Longinus’ idea of sublime .  
• The importance of a teacher’s role in Freedom Writers .  
• Critical analysis of the efficiency of CBT. 
• Rhetorical analysis of an article on a proactive care program.  
• The concept of emotional intelligence : critical analysis.  
• Evaluate implementation of Windsome’s risk management strategy to enhance the company’s response to stress.  
• The importance of symbolism in Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s .  
• Critical analysis of Thomas Paine’s pamphlets.  
• Rhetorical techniques used in Hamlet by W. Shakespeare .  
• In-depth analysis of the modern world’s social issues in The Handmaid’s Tale . 
• Social messages in Robinson’s and Kincaid’s stories.  
• Analysis of rhetorical strategies used in Dwellings by Linda Hogan.  
• Critical analysis of issues elucidated in A Loss for Words by J. Thurman.  
• Discuss the problems of alienation and perception in The Things They Carried . 

📑 Critical Analysis Essay Examples & Bonus Tips

The following writing tips will help you understand how to apply your critical thinking skills in practice and write an excellent critical essay on your own.

Critical Essay Format & Free Samples

Looking for some tips on how to format your paper? This section reflects the latest guidelines for citing your sources with the latest APA 7th and MLA 9th publication manuals.

Before you dive into writing your critical analysis paper, get inspired with some compelling essay examples. The first is a film analysis example. You can download the PDF file below:

The Birds  by Alfred Hitchcock is a thriller that derives its suspense from the violence which stands on the borderline with divine retribution. The birds of the film are the symbol of the said violence and primary actors that contribute to the semiotic revelations of the film.

The following critical analysis essay is concerned with a literary work. You can download it below:

Feminism has been influential in various aspects of society for many decades. With the beginning of women’s emancipation, humanity has progressed not only in political and social life but also in science, culture, and literary studies. A feminist standpoint in literature research points to the limited portrayal of the characters in literary works, which showed the world mainly from a patriarchal perspective.

Here’s the list of critical analysis essay examples. You can check them out to get a better understanding of critical analysis and to gain some inspiration.

• Managing Business Risks: A Critical Analysis
• A Critical Analysis of a Research Study Conducted to Establish the Quality of Pain Management
• Nursing Skills for Palliative Care: A Critical Analysis
• Critical Analysis of Quantitative vs. Qualitative Research
• Nighthawks by Edward Hopper: Critical Analysis
• Roosevelt and Obama: Critical Analysis of Two Speeches
• “The Love of My Life” by T. C. Boyle Critical Analysis
• Nursing Education-Practice Gap: Critical Analysis
• Affordable Care Act: A Critical Analysis
• Mother Tongue by Amy Tan: Critical Analysis

Bonus Tips: Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is the process of conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information. It is about careful reasoning directed to a goal. The main components of this process include observing, wondering, imagining, experimenting, judging, and deciding.

This type of thinking is instrumental in conducting a critical analysis. To succeed at it, you need to be attentive, confident, and open-minded. Below are some questions that you can ask yourself while thinking critically:

• Why are you being told this?
• What are you not being told?
• Who is telling you this?
• How reliable is this information?
• Are there any manipulations involved?
• How else can you analyze the same material?

Critical thinking is a skill that develops with time and effort. However, you may encounter barriers that can prevent you from making accurate judgments. The following tips will help you overcome them:

• Step back from your personal feelings and biases
• Look for different ways to examine the data
• Check your sources for reliability
• Do your best to detect manipulations in arguments
• Always conceptualize what you are reading
• Challenge your worldview

Want to learn more? Feel free to check out our article on critical thinking essays .

Now you know everything necessary to write a perfect critical analysis essay. Feel free to share this article or leave a comment!

Further reading

• How to Write a Critique Paper: Tips + Critique Essay Examples
• How to Write an Art Critique: Examples & Strategies
• How to Write an Analysis Essay: Examples + Writing Guide
• How to Write a Book Review: Format, Outline, & Example
• How to Write a Rhetorical Analysis Essay: Outline, Steps, & Examples

❓ Critical Analysis Essay FAQs

When analyzing any literary text, it is essential to evaluate the work and use the theme to support your opinion. The response’s goal is to show the reader what the selection of the source and the theme means to you personally.

The purpose of a response to a literature essay is to inform your reader about something interesting and insightful you found in a literary work. It may focus on the characters, plot, or theme of the story.

In a critical essay, choose the formal language and avoid using “I” statements. Focus on the piece you are analyzing, its strengths, and weaknesses. Using the first-person singular will take away the reader’s attention from your argument to you.

A critical source is a source that interprets, analyzes, critiques, and adds to the discussion of the primary source. It is then integrated into critical writing. The best critical sources can be found through library catalogs and scholarly databases.

🔍 References

• Critical Analysis: University of Wollongong
• Some Suggestions on Critically Evaluating Your Reading in History: Carleton College
• Criticism and Critical Analysis: Kansas State University
• Resources for Writers: Analytical Writing: Drew University
• Critical Thinking and Writing: University of Kent
• Writing Critical Essays about Literature: Gallaudet University
• Film Analysis: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Cultural Critique: Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
• Writing a Critical or Rhetorical Analysis: Bellevue College
• Writing Critical Analysis Papers: University of Washington
• Critical Analysis Template: Thompson Rivers University
• Writing Effective Summary and Response Essays: Colorado State University
• Rhetorical/Critical Analysis: Houston Community College
• Writing Critical Reviews: Queen’s University
• General APA Guidelines: Purdue University
• Using MLA Format: MLA.org
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Critical Essay

A critical essay, subjectively speaking, is one of the most fun and easy essays to make because it gives you the chance to express your most honest opinions regarding a literary piece, a work of art, a film, or a piece of music. Critical essays have a high consideration for the perspective of its audience. It revolves around the importance of analysis and interpretation of the subject at hand by placing it on a much broader context.

Critical essay is a form of academic writing. It includes an argumentative thesis that summarizes the author’s main point. It would also contain textual evidences that can support the interpretation and serve as supporting information to give credibility to the assumptions. You may also see essay writing examples.

The main objective of a critical essay is to analyze, interpret, and evaluate a subject. It starts by the author expressing his claims and validating them by providing citations from primary and secondary sources.

Although the word  critical  or  criticize  denotes a negative action, criticizing an object or a text for a critical essay only means that you are taking the topic limb by limb to be able to study its many unique aspects which can only lead to thorough understanding. You may also like short essay examples & samples.

Critical essay can also open novel ways on how to approach the topic which can lead to further appreciation of it. It doesn’t seek to judge the content or the quality of the topic under study, but it assesses it instead to give way to interpreting its meaning and grasping its significance. You may also check out concept essay examples.

Critical Reflective Essay Template

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Critical Essay on Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”

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Poetry Analysis Essay Template

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Sample Body Paragraph of a Critical Essay

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Characteristics of a Critical Essay

Students are made to write critical essays on a variety of topics. These may include poetry, novels, films, paintings, even video games, newspaper or magazine articles, and speeches. But regardless of the subject it handles, a critical essay shares the same characteristics.

1. A critical essay has a central claim.

A claim or an assumption is the very reason why a critical essay is born—because the author of the essay has a point he wants to make. The essay would begin with a thesis statement, which would contain the writer’s claim, and the rest of the essay’s body would be created to support and prove that general statement . Authors can also choose to present possible counterarguments in their essays and present more evidences to kill these oppositions and strengthen the point they are trying to prove to be true.

2. A critical essay has evidences, and primary and secondary sources.

This characteristic is the dominant aspect of an essay. The author would need as much evidence as he can gather to strengthen his chances of proving his claim. He can quote lines from the text he is writing about; he can specify the themes used; he can discuss imagism and metaphors used; he can objectify the structure and the dialogues; he can even use the choice of words used to back his claim. You may also see student essay examples & samples.

Critical essays may also cite outside sources if it can help him support his assumption. These citations may come from books, articles, essays, and other scholarly texts.

3. A critical essay has a conclusion.

In writing a critical essay, the author has two goals: to make a claim and to arrive at a conclusion. Making a claim would start the simple essay  and a conclusion would mean that that claim has been proven. A conclusion can be two paragraphs at the most. The first of which can serve as an introduction before the final close if the author wants to discuss a few things before finishing off.

The second paragraph, often the only one in most critical essays, summarizes the discussions made in the body and highlights the most important insights.

Writing a Critical Analysis Guidelines

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Rubric for Writing a Critical Essay

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Sample Critical Essay

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Critical Essay on Tess of the d’Urbervilles

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Steps in Writing a Critical Essay

1. read and study the topic of your essay..

If you were asked to write a critical essay about  The Canterbury Tales , make sure that you are familiar with the material. It would be helpful if you have read the piece (preferably the translated version) and thoroughly understood what it was about.

A careful study of the characters and the themes while reading would also be helpful to help you understand the book better. Take notes as you go along so that you won’t have to waste time skimming the pages if you’ve forgotten a character’s name or what happened in a specific scene. You may also see essay writing examples & samples.

2. Conduct further research.

This step is important because it will help you find secondary sources that can serve as your evidence. Your research may also help you locate articles and effective essays written about your topic which can give you new insights about the material. It is also vital that you check the credibility of your sources. Make sure that the information it contains is correct, and that the author has, at least, an academic background that makes him eligible to be a source for an academic paper.

3. Create a thesis statement.

Once you have read the material and conducted additional research about it, what is it about the material that you want your essay to focus on? Perhaps you want to write about “The Miller”, or The Narrator . A critical essay would be easier and more enjoyable if you write about a character, an idea, or a concept you are most intrigued about. You may also like self-introduction essay examples & samples.

Your thesis statement should be able to effectively summarize the claim you are trying to make. It can either be one or two sentences long. Be specific in writing your thesis statement. It should not include vague descriptions such as “It was good” or “I liked it.” You should specify exactly which parts and why. The reader of your critical essay should understand exactly where you are coming from by simply reading your thesis statement .

4. Draft your ideas.

By this time, you should have enough information to work with since you have already read the material and conducted research about it. Before writing your critical essay, or any essay at all, create a rough outline of the details you think can prove your claim.

Is there a certain line in the text that you can use as your evidence? Or have you discovered another published academic writer that has the same opinions about the material as you? These information can serve as your claim’s support, so it is important that you arrange them in a way that they can compliment and continue each other’s message at the same time. You may also like analytical essay examples.

5. Begin your essay with an interesting line.

The beginning of your paper is your only chance to create a first impression and to grab the attention of your audiences. It should be engaging enough that your readers wouldn’t want to stop reading until they finished listening to what you have to say. Don’t start with clichés that have long ago lost their luster. Begin with an anecdote perhaps, or a particularly emotional line from the material you are writing about. You may also check out personal essay examples.

6. Give your readers enough context about the material.

In writing an effective critical essay, you need to assume that your readers know nothing or, at least, close to nothing about the material. So you should establish enough context for them to start with. After you have introduced your thesis statement, discuss a little about the material you are criticizing. Include only the pivotal details. Otherwise, your critical essay will look more like a general summary than anything else.

7. Incorporate your evidences and supporting arguments into the body of your essay.

Once you have introduced your readers to your thesis statement and given them a short review of the material, it is now your chance to prove your point. Lay down your evidences as organized as you can, and expound on them. Searching for evidences that can support your claim and assimilating them into your essay’s body is easy. But actually convincing people of their truth? There lies the challenge. You might be interested in high school essay examples.

The key to making your evidences and arguments believable and persuasive is to combine logic and emotion at the same time.

Your evidences should be as tangible as possible. They should be seen and read by your audience themselves, otherwise, they may not believe it. You can persuade your audience by presenting data and statistics and analogies. But they will be moved by you if you incorporate sentiments into your arguments. You may also see literary essay examples.

Create vivid scenarios and descriptive sentences, and let your reader’s feelings convince him of the truth in your words.

8. Let your conclusion be unforgettable.

Once you have finished your paper’s body, all you are left to do is to finish it up with a conclusion. Give a short summary of the important things you have discussed. You may also choose to explain the relevance of your claim to your reader, or present new questions that your reader can ruminate on. You may also like informative essay examples.

Let your conclusion ring in the minds of your audience by presenting it in a way that they will not forget. This is how you will know that your paper actually accomplished something.

Critical Essay Example

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Critical Essay Citation Format

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Tips in Writing Your First Critical Essay

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Important Tips to Remember When Writing a Critical Essay

1. Although your opinions and feelings about your topic is a big factor to be considered, you should avoid expressing it if you do not have any evidence to support it. A critical essay is meant to be informative, which means that all claims should be backed up by a credible evidence and not simply stated because it strikes the author’s fancy. You may also see academic essay examples .

2. Criticizing a piece of work does not mean that you are personally attacking its creator. It is only that you are being evaluative toward his work, and this may not always produce opinions that are flattering, but at least they are products of a careful study and not just subjectivity. You may also like sample essay outlines .

3. Your critical essay should teach your audience something new. Whether it is a new perspective, or a fresh idea, or a life lesson, they should have something useful to take from your paper.

4. Your tone in writing your critical essay should be objective and serious. Although you can use a lighter, more humorous tone, this may not always be acceptable for certain topics. You may also check out scholarship essay examples.

5. Be specific about the points you are making. This can make supporting it easier. If you give vague claims, you can also only provide vague evidences, and this will not make a well-structured and effective critical essay.

6. Quote and cite lines from the text itself. This is often the easiest and strongest support you can have for your arguments. For example, you are trying to make a point about a character’s main flaw. You can quote a scene or a line from the text to prove it. You might be interested in travel essay examples.

7. Focus on a particular aspect of the subject, like its theme or its plot, instead of looking at it as a whole. This can make criticizing it difficult since there are many angles you should consider. Emphasize only one or two main points so you can focus on it. You may also see descriptive essay examples.

Writing a critical essay gives us the chance to look at things from a different point of view. Often, we get caught up in looking at things through everybody’s eyes. Critical essays are a fresh break from that. It helps us realize that there truly is more than meets the eye, and we can only discover that if we do more than look.

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5.7.1: Annotated Sample Response Essay- "Spread Feminism, Not Germs"

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In reference to school closures, Lewis brings up the Ebola health crisis which occurred in West Africa in the time period of 2014-2016. (Note: The following paragraph cites a historical precedent for the Covid-19 outbreak as a basis for comparison.) According to Lewis, during this outbreak, many African girls lost their chance at education; moreover, many women died during childbirth because of a lack of medical care. Mentioning these elaborations proves once again that not only coronavirus but also many other outbreaks have caused a disaster for feminism. Pandemics, in other words, pile yet another problem on women who always face an uphill battle against patriarchal structures. (Note: This passage ties this observation about the Ebola outbreak in West Africa to a greater observation about Pandemics and gender roles overall.)

I started reading her article with a feeling of frustration. While the main topic of the article is feminism, Lewis gives a couple of male examples from the past, such as William Shakespeare and Isaac Newton. (Note: The author makes a personal note here, marking an emotional connection and reaction to the text.) She seems at times to attribute their success to their masculinity. They both lived in times of plague, demonstrating that despite all our progress, the human species is still grappling with the same issues. According to Lewis, neither Newton nor Shakespeare had to worry about childcare or housework. Even though her comparison seemed odd to me, she managed to surprise me that in over 300 years many gender inequities remain the same. This is actually very tragic. It is hard to acknowledge that women are still facing gender inequality in almost every area even 300 years after the time of these great English thinkers. (Note: The author cites historical precedent again: this passage argues that the relationship between plagues and gender roles has not changed much in centuries.) Assuming housework is the natural place of women without asking women if they want to do it is asking for too big a sacrifice. Since couples have the option to split the housework and childcare, why should only women have to shoulder most of the burden? This is a question that I might never be able to answer, even if I search my whole life. It is unacceptable that there is pressure on women to conform to gender roles, such as cultural settings and expectations. (Note: The author uses a rhetorical question to segue into a new supporting argument.) Women should not have to sacrifice their leisure time completing unpaid work. I agree with Lewis when she mentions the “second shift” situation. When we consider women’s first shift as their paid work, the second shift represents the time that they spend working in the home. In this case, there is apparently no shift for leisure time. Lewis also supports this by saying “Across the world, women—including those with jobs—do more housework and have less leisure time than their male partners.” Additionally, it seems like economic recovery is going to be long-lasting because of the Coronavirus. As a solution, if men and women have equal housework responsibilities, women may spend more of their time completing paid work. (Note: The author makes a call to action near the end of the essay.) In this way, they can contribute to the economy while they are socializing. Especially after the Pandemic is over, we will need a greater workforce, so hopefully both men and women can equally participate in the economy. (Note: Much like the first sentence of the essay, the last sentence speaks to a greater, big-picture context: the need for equality in a post-pandemic world.)

Attribution

This sample essay was written by Gizem Gur and edited by Anna Mills. Annotations are by Saramanda Swigart, edited by Anna Mills. Licensed CC BY-NC 4.0 .

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

14 Student Essay Example: Reader Response

“the bees without a king”.

By Ethan McCall

When reading Kurt Vonnegut’s short story “The Drone King,” most readers would come away from the story with the idea that Sheldon Quick is just a crazy businessman who invested in the wrong idea. I mean, what sane person would think that inventing carrier bees in a world with the wireless telegraph is a good idea? That’s just the thing though. No sane person would think that it’s a sound business idea. However, this story by Kurt Vonnegut likely speaks differently to a particular audience. This story’s implied readers are a specific demographic of men who call themselves Incels. While it at first appears to be a story that reflects with and represents the ideologies of Incels, it eventually reveals itself to be a critique of their worldview and ideologies.

Now, before I go any further, I must first shed some light on what an Incel is and the community that they belong to. Incel is a term that means “involuntarily celibate.” This online community of Incels is comprised of men who are bitter about their lack of sexual experience, and they blame women for it. The men belonging to this group also blame women and feminism for the “downfall” of society. They believe that women have dominated the world and now unfairly discriminate against men, thus robbing them of the social dominance in society that they believe men should have (Glace 288-289).

The character of Sheldon Quick in Vonnegut’s story is eerily similar to these men who call themselves Incels. Sheldon Quick is a man who has enjoyed a significant level of success and wealth throughout his life. One would think that given his circumstances, he has almost everything that he could ever want. However, from his first appearance, his biases become clear. When the stockbroker enters the Millennium Club to meet Mr. Quick, he is stopped at the front desk and informed that there are no women allowed into the club (Vonnegut). As a reader, this immediately sets off alarm bells in my head and paints an unflattering picture of Sheldon Quick. The Millennium Club and its patrons very clearly have some very negative views on women if they won’t even allow them to enter the building. However, someone from the Incel community would very likely agree with and praise this rule for how it puts women back into their place.

Rather than women dominating men and taking over their spaces as Incels believe women have been doing for quite some time now, they aren’t even allowed in the same spaces as men anymore. This lack of proximity lets men be themselves and innovate as they are supposed to without being disturbed by the lesser sex. To Incels, women have no inherent value aside from being able to have sex with men. This mindset can be seen in Glace’s article on Incels. When women have expressed that men who only want sex are disgusting, Incels have responded callously: “[W]hat the fuck else is there to want from such a vapid shell of a person? Your only redeeming quality is that you can lay still and take a dick. Why are you surprised?” (Glace, Taking the Black Pill 294-295). However, these roles are swapped within the world of the bees. The male bees are exterminated once they fulfill their only function of mating with the queen (Vonnegut). The reason that Mr. Quick, and by extension the Incel, are so interested in the plight of the male bee is because they are being discriminated against in the same way that Incels discriminate against women.

This is another sentiment that Incels latch onto and agree with. They believe that men are the wrongfully oppressed gender, and women have stolen their rightful place in society (Glace 288-289). This idea that men are being oppressed by women is further expanded upon when Mr. Quick takes the stockbroker up to the roof where his bees are being kept. When they arrive on the roof, they come across the scene of large bees stumbling out of their hives being hunted and killed by smaller bees. As Mr. Quick saved the large bees, the stockbroker asked him what was happening. Mr. Quick replies that it’s a bee war between the large males and the smaller female bees. When the stockbroker asks which bees the hives belonged to originally, Mr. Quick says that “Your question is good enough to be chiseled in granite for all time to ponder” (Vonnegut). From this scene, it becomes very clear how Mr. Quick feels about the plight of the male bees, and by extension, the human males of our world.

Mr. Quick believes that males have constructed society as we know it. They’ve worked tirelessly to construct the foundation of the world. However, now women have come in and pushed the men out of their positions of power, thereby taking the world for themselves. An Incel reader reading this would most likely be agreeing with Mr. Quick and his views on the world. This way of thinking about the role of women is very much in line with how Incels think about women. They have unrightfully taken the roles of leadership that men used to have, and are now discriminating against them, exactly how the male bees from the hives that they built are being pushed out from their homes and being torn to pieces by the female bees.

Much like Incels, Mr. Quick has determined that men are under attack from women, and drastic measures need to be taken in order to save the male species from this unrightful persecution. Due to this unfair exclusion of male bees from their hives, Mr. Quick is determined to save them, because much like the human male, Mr. Quick believes that male bees will be safe from female tyranny if they are kept away from women. He does this by creating a new hive for them that consists only of other male bees that have been forced out of their hives. In their new hives, they aren’t forced to do anything or be productive. According to Mr. Quick, the reason that the male bees can enjoy their lives in such leisure is that they are free from the demanding and thankless females (Vonnegut). This is very similar to the Millennium Club to which Mr. Quick belongs due to the fact that in both the new hive and the Millennium Club, no women are allowed. Mr. Quick’s observations about bees have poisoned his views on women.

From this point on, a reader from the Incel community would likely expect that Mr. Quick would continue to fight against the female rule that the world has come to be subjected to. However, subverting these expectations of the reader, the story starts to slowly show that Mr. Quick’s philosophy is incorrect. When Mr. Quick tells the stockbroker that they will only have to provide each of their bees with a penny’s worth of honey for an entire year, the stockbroker asks a very astute question: why don’t the male bees make their honey? This is when Mr. Quick reveals that it’s only the female workers that make honey. The stockbroker then points out the obvious. “Huh. I guess that’s why the female workers knock off the males, eh? The males are nothing but a drain on the community” (Vonnegut). This is a key moment in the story that shows just how biased Mr. Quick is. Even though he knows that these male workers contribute nothing and instead are only a burden on the colony, he still believes that the female bees clearing them out of the hive is unjust.

This echoes back to his situation. He was left a large sum of money by his father and has spent his life doing anything but work. Mr. Quick sees himself in the male bees. They’re both useless and provide nothing to their respective societies, yet Mr. Quick thinks that they both deserve a respected spot in the societies that they’ve contributed nothing to. A reader from the Incel community would likely be affected negatively by this development in the story. While the story was at first reiterating and reaffirming Incel ideology, all of a sudden, it’s pointing out flaws in their beliefs.

The ideals of Mr. Quick, and by extension the Incel, continue to be challenged, and ultimately proven wrong, at the press conference that he holds to demonstrate how bees can live in a male-only hive. According to a study by Nicolae-Sorin Drăgan on political narratives, telling a story means to lie or speak falsely. This story is a distortion of an otherwise uncomfortable reality and lying (70). This sort of story is exactly what Mr. Quick tells to the press during his conference. He goes on about how the only crime that male bees have committed is that they can’t make honey, yet they are discriminated against and killed for it. He declares that this system needs to be stopped for the safety of bees, but it’s obvious at this point that Mr. Quick is also talking about human women as well as bees.

However, despite his grandiose speech to the press, when Mr. Quick releases the bees so that they can go to their all-male colony, they don’t. Instead, they go back to the colonies that are run by the female bees and are subsequently killed. It’s at this point in the story that it subverts the expectations of the Incel reader about where the story was going. They were most likely expecting the story to praise Mr. Quick as a hero who was liberating men from the tyranny of females, but rather, the story shows Mr. Quick as a bitter old man who can’t accept his shortcomings and instead blames all of his problems on women and society as a whole. Thus, condemning Incels and their hatred of women, showing them that their lack of importance in society is their fault rather than a malicious plot by women to overthrow men.

While this story first appeared to agree with and support Incel beliefs, painting Mr. Quick to be a wise old man who has realized that women are the problem with society, as the story progresses, it shows that Mr. Quick is a lot of things, but wise isn’t one of them. Instead, he’s a man who was frightened by the social power of women increasing. Seeing this as a threat to men everywhere, Mr. Quick, in his attempt to prove that women were unnecessary, proved only that the ideals he and many Incels believe in are undeniably flawed and fundamentally wrong. This story uses the sympathy that Incel readers initially had for Mr. Quick as a way to challenge their beliefs. By the end of the story, when the character they supported so much is proven to be nothing but a sad man whose judgment was clouded by hate, Incel readers are encouraged to look inward and examine the beliefs that led Mr. Quick to this point and think about where their beliefs will take them. The story uses the downfall of Mr. Quick to inspire a change from the hateful ideology of Incels to something kinder and more tolerant.

Works Cited

Drăgan, Nicolae Sorin. “The Emotional Arcs of Political Narratives.”  Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov, Series IV: Philology & Cultural Studies  13.Suppl (2020): 69-86.  d oi.org/10.31926/but.pcs.2020.62.13.3.6.

Glace, Alyssa M., Tessa L. Dover, and Judith G. Zatkin. “Taking the black pill: An empirical analysis of the “Incel”.”  Psychology of Men & Masculinities  (2021).  doi.org/10.1037/men0000328.

Vonnegut, Kurt. “A Newly Discovered Kurt Vonnegut Story.”  The Atlantic , Atlantic Media Company, 10 Jan. 2020,  www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/kurt-vonnegut-the-drone-king/537870/ .

Critical Worlds Copyright © 2024 by Liza Long is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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NPR defends its journalism after senior editor says it has lost the public's trust

David Folkenflik

NPR is defending its journalism and integrity after a senior editor wrote an essay accusing it of losing the public's trust. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

NPR is defending its journalism and integrity after a senior editor wrote an essay accusing it of losing the public's trust.

NPR's top news executive defended its journalism and its commitment to reflecting a diverse array of views on Tuesday after a senior NPR editor wrote a broad critique of how the network has covered some of the most important stories of the age.

"An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don't have an audience that reflects America," writes Uri Berliner.

A strategic emphasis on diversity and inclusion on the basis of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation, promoted by NPR's former CEO, John Lansing, has fed "the absence of viewpoint diversity," Berliner writes.

NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, wrote in a memo to staff Tuesday afternoon that she and the news leadership team strongly reject Berliner's assessment.

"We're proud to stand behind the exceptional work that our desks and shows do to cover a wide range of challenging stories," she wrote. "We believe that inclusion — among our staff, with our sourcing, and in our overall coverage — is critical to telling the nuanced stories of this country and our world."

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She added, "None of our work is above scrutiny or critique. We must have vigorous discussions in the newsroom about how we serve the public as a whole."

A spokesperson for NPR said Chapin, who also serves as the network's chief content officer, would have no further comment.

Praised by NPR's critics

Berliner is a senior editor on NPR's Business Desk. (Disclosure: I, too, am part of the Business Desk, and Berliner has edited many of my past stories. He did not see any version of this article or participate in its preparation before it was posted publicly.)

Berliner's essay , titled "I've Been at NPR for 25 years. Here's How We Lost America's Trust," was published by The Free Press, a website that has welcomed journalists who have concluded that mainstream news outlets have become reflexively liberal.

Berliner writes that as a Subaru-driving, Sarah Lawrence College graduate who "was raised by a lesbian peace activist mother ," he fits the mold of a loyal NPR fan.

Yet Berliner says NPR's news coverage has fallen short on some of the most controversial stories of recent years, from the question of whether former President Donald Trump colluded with Russia in the 2016 election, to the origins of the virus that causes COVID-19, to the significance and provenance of emails leaked from a laptop owned by Hunter Biden weeks before the 2020 election. In addition, he blasted NPR's coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

On each of these stories, Berliner asserts, NPR has suffered from groupthink due to too little diversity of viewpoints in the newsroom.

The essay ricocheted Tuesday around conservative media , with some labeling Berliner a whistleblower . Others picked it up on social media, including Elon Musk, who has lambasted NPR for leaving his social media site, X. (Musk emailed another NPR reporter a link to Berliner's article with a gibe that the reporter was a "quisling" — a World War II reference to someone who collaborates with the enemy.)

When asked for further comment late Tuesday, Berliner declined, saying the essay spoke for itself.

The arguments he raises — and counters — have percolated across U.S. newsrooms in recent years. The #MeToo sexual harassment scandals of 2016 and 2017 forced newsrooms to listen to and heed more junior colleagues. The social justice movement prompted by the killing of George Floyd in 2020 inspired a reckoning in many places. Newsroom leaders often appeared to stand on shaky ground.

Leaders at many newsrooms, including top editors at The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times , lost their jobs. Legendary Washington Post Executive Editor Martin Baron wrote in his memoir that he feared his bonds with the staff were "frayed beyond repair," especially over the degree of self-expression his journalists expected to exert on social media, before he decided to step down in early 2021.

Since then, Baron and others — including leaders of some of these newsrooms — have suggested that the pendulum has swung too far.

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New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger warned last year against journalists embracing a stance of what he calls "one-side-ism": "where journalists are demonstrating that they're on the side of the righteous."

"I really think that that can create blind spots and echo chambers," he said.

Internal arguments at The Times over the strength of its reporting on accusations that Hamas engaged in sexual assaults as part of a strategy for its Oct. 7 attack on Israel erupted publicly . The paper conducted an investigation to determine the source of a leak over a planned episode of the paper's podcast The Daily on the subject, which months later has not been released. The newsroom guild accused the paper of "targeted interrogation" of journalists of Middle Eastern descent.

Heated pushback in NPR's newsroom

Given Berliner's account of private conversations, several NPR journalists question whether they can now trust him with unguarded assessments about stories in real time. Others express frustration that he had not sought out comment in advance of publication. Berliner acknowledged to me that for this story, he did not seek NPR's approval to publish the piece, nor did he give the network advance notice.

Some of Berliner's NPR colleagues are responding heatedly. Fernando Alfonso, a senior supervising editor for digital news, wrote that he wholeheartedly rejected Berliner's critique of the coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict, for which NPR's journalists, like their peers, periodically put themselves at risk.

Alfonso also took issue with Berliner's concern over the focus on diversity at NPR.

"As a person of color who has often worked in newsrooms with little to no people who look like me, the efforts NPR has made to diversify its workforce and its sources are unique and appropriate given the news industry's long-standing lack of diversity," Alfonso says. "These efforts should be celebrated and not denigrated as Uri has done."

After this story was first published, Berliner contested Alfonso's characterization, saying his criticism of NPR is about the lack of diversity of viewpoints, not its diversity itself.

"I never criticized NPR's priority of achieving a more diverse workforce in terms of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation. I have not 'denigrated' NPR's newsroom diversity goals," Berliner said. "That's wrong."

Questions of diversity

Under former CEO John Lansing, NPR made increasing diversity, both of its staff and its audience, its "North Star" mission. Berliner says in the essay that NPR failed to consider broader diversity of viewpoint, noting, "In D.C., where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans."

Berliner cited audience estimates that suggested a concurrent falloff in listening by Republicans. (The number of people listening to NPR broadcasts and terrestrial radio broadly has declined since the start of the pandemic.)

Former NPR vice president for news and ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin tweeted , "I know Uri. He's not wrong."

Others questioned Berliner's logic. "This probably gets causality somewhat backward," tweeted Semafor Washington editor Jordan Weissmann . "I'd guess that a lot of NPR listeners who voted for [Mitt] Romney have changed how they identify politically."

Similarly, Nieman Lab founder Joshua Benton suggested the rise of Trump alienated many NPR-appreciating Republicans from the GOP.

In recent years, NPR has greatly enhanced the percentage of people of color in its workforce and its executive ranks. Four out of 10 staffers are people of color; nearly half of NPR's leadership team identifies as Black, Asian or Latino.

"The philosophy is: Do you want to serve all of America and make sure it sounds like all of America, or not?" Lansing, who stepped down last month, says in response to Berliner's piece. "I'd welcome the argument against that."

"On radio, we were really lagging in our representation of an audience that makes us look like what America looks like today," Lansing says. The U.S. looks and sounds a lot different than it did in 1971, when NPR's first show was broadcast, Lansing says.

A network spokesperson says new NPR CEO Katherine Maher supports Chapin and her response to Berliner's critique.

The spokesperson says that Maher "believes that it's a healthy thing for a public service newsroom to engage in rigorous consideration of the needs of our audiences, including where we serve our mission well and where we can serve it better."

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Gerry Holmes. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.