For this assignment, you are asked to write what is called a personal response or impressionistic essay. In such an essay, you present your own personal opinion about the material.

For this assignment, you are asked to write what is called a personal response or
impressionistic essay. In such an essay, you present your own personal opinion about the
material. In other words, you should focus on questions such as:
• What did this material say to me?
• Was there something in this material that made me think?
• Was there something in this material that taught me something?
• Was there something in this material that moved me emotionally?
Please understand that you are NOT asked to write research papers, and any paper that
consists mostly of material derived from secondary sources (websites, encyclopedias, etc.) will
receive a very low and probably failing grade.
Because you are asked to write about what the material means to you, you should have
no need to consult outside secondary sources such as websites or books. You are writing about
what you think—so the content of the paper will come from you. (Of course, if you do use
outside sources, you must be careful about documenting your sources and avoiding plagiarism.)
Information about formatting and academic honesty expectations (repeated in
abbreviated form from our earlier handout) are given on the other side of this handout.

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