SECTION E. RESPONDING TO READINGS     How to Start Your Paper by Reading ---- If your instructor assigns a text to read--for example, a short essay or perhaps the chapter of a book--see below.  If you find your own text (e.g., an online or library essay) to read, then you should look for one that has two qualities in particular:  Unless otherwise assigned by your instructor, the text of the reading preferably should be about an issue with which you have personal experience or one about which you have a store of knowledge from others close to you and/or from studying it.  Do not pick something merely because it causes you a strong emotional reaction.  However, if you have several possible choices about which you have experience or knowledge, then choosing one that also creates strong feelings in you may help you better write your paper. The text also should represent just one main side of a debatable issue.  That is--unless otherwise assigned by your instructor--the text should be an argument on a debatable question, and the text should not try to show more than one side of the issue.  It should not, for example, try to fairly represent two or three sides of the issue, nor merely report on someone else's opinion, unless this is what your instructor assigns.   SOURCES OF SHORT, ARGUMENTATIVE TEXTS The "Opposing Viewpoints" series or "The Reference Shelf" series, both of which can be found in larger libraries, as assigned by your instructor One- or two-page editorials in newsmagazines that are specifically marked as opinion pieces (usually found at the very end), as assigned by your instructor (but not regular news articles in the magazines) Long editorials in the editorial or opinion sections of large, daily, city newspapers, as assigned by your instructor (but--at the college level--not short editorials or letters to the editor, for they are too short; and not standard news articles, for these are factual, not argumentative) Web sites with arguments, as assigned by your instructor.  For a list of links to such sites, see OnlineGrammar.org's "Online Arguments." You should buy or copy the text so that you can mark the pages as you read.  Then read it thoroughly using the methods described in the chapter called "How to Read Texts." An alternative focus at the beginning is to have a strong, intelligent, and complex opinion on a subject--even to freewrite about it, if you wish--and then to find a text on the same subject, but one with which you disagree.  If the text is a good match for what you know--in terms of an opposing topic and opposing subtopics--then you will have an appropriate text with which to disagree. However, quite often, the text will be assigned to you.  In such a case, you must do everything you can to understand the text thoroughly.  You certainly can write rough drafts of your thoughts during the time you read the essay, or even after a first reading.  However, generally speaking, you need to read your text at least twice, if at all possible, using critical reading for at least one of those texts.  To find out how to read critically, go to  the chapter in this section called "How to Read Texts."             To continue the chapter of this Web book that you are reading, please click on your back arrow or use the right-hand column. --- Return to top.