Responding to a paper can be a little intimidating the first time. We see that process modeled in almost every workshop meeting, but when our turn rolls around, it may not be as intuitive as we thought. I have been providing guidelines when I ask a new person to participate as a respondent, but I thought it might be useful to post those guidelines on this blog for everyone to refer to whenever the need arises. Hope it helps!
Michele
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Here are the things usually included in a response:
1) thank the author for sharing his/her work
2) identify what you see as the main argument of the paper; you can read the sentence (it should be somewhere in the introduction) or paraphrase it. If that’s not what the author wanted you to get from the paper, s/he will have feedback needed to revise or more strongly emphasize her/his claim. Sometimes they give a claim in the intro but it doesn’t seem to go along with the body of the paper–you should say this, if that’s what you think.
3) identify the 2-3 major themes that the paper covers
4) ask about 3 questions that you had when reading the paper, or if you think the paper would benefit from an additional source or a different piece of evidence, or if the argument seems weak at some specific place (cite the page number), or if you just aren’t convinced by the argument–have a total of about 3 points to bring up.
5) say something that you think was strong/good/compelling/interesting (and why) about the paper
6) thank the author again (seems redundant, but it’s a good closer)