First off, here's today's presentation:
Lesson 3.
Announcement: You
NEED to have your textbooks by now. If you have ordered them and are waiting to pick them up, you need to physically go to the bookstore and get them (the website will continue to say "out of stock" even though we know that they are in stock. In fact, Varsity has over 900 copies available, so
should you come to class without your textbooks next week, your participation points will be deducted).
We covered the basics of summary and paraphrase in class today, meaning we discussed (1) the differences between the two and (2) how each are used in academic writing. We looked at what makes a
good summary/paraphrase and what makes a
bad summary/paraphrase. If you missed class, make sure to review the presentation posted above, as well as your readings that were due today (these include guidelines/checklists that you should look over before and after composing a summary or paraphrase).
Remember:
- A summary is when you condense a text. Summaries can be different lengths depending on what you're using them for, but they generally should encompass the entirety of the original author's message. Make sure that you understand the text so that you can present it accurately.
- A paraphrase is when you restate an author's words to put them in your own words. As opposed to a summary, which talks about the text, a paraphrase requires you to step into the author's shoes and rewrite their ideas in your own words.
Homework:
- Readings:
- FYW: Ch. 4 (pgs. 69-100)
- St. Martin's Handbook (pgs. 124-139)
- BA2
Brief Assignment #2:
Objective: To demonstrate your ability to summarize and paraphrase portions of a text.
Purpose: Summarizing and paraphrasing are important skills for academic writers. You will need to be able to condense other writers' ideas into your own words so that you can write research papers, analytical papers, argumentative papers, and other types of academic writing. the length of your summary will always be determined by your purpose for writing, as well as by your intended audience.
In addition, for purposes of this course, summarizing and paraphrasing will help you prepare for the rhetorical analysis, where you will need to be able to succinctly state an author's purpose and discuss specific passages of an article. For this assignment, you will write two summaries of a text and a paraphrase of a small portion of a text. Use the discussion about summaries and paraphrases in Part 3, Section 13c-d of The St. Martin’s Handbook to assist you in doing so.
Description, Part One, Article Summaries
Your instructor will tell you which article from your First-Year Writing textbook you will use for your summaries.
(Pick one of the three articles: Dillon's "What Corporate America Can't Build," Cangialosi's "Healing through the Written Word," or Pipher's "Writing to Connect." Start thinking of which article you would like to write your rhetorical analysis over and work with that article).
You will write two summaries of the assigned article. The first summary will be a single sentence in length. The next summary will be five sentences in length. Strategies for completing both will be discussed in class. Before turning in your summaries, please make sure you label them as either "One Sentence Summary" or "Five Sentence Summary."
Description, Part Two, Paraphrase
After you’ve completed your summaries, you will paraphrase a brief passage selected by your instructor.
(Paraphrase paragraph six of Atul Gawande's "A Lifesaving Checklist"--pgs. 99-100 in FYW.)
Your goal in this portion of the assignment is to restate the ideas of the passage in your own words and do so in a way that is readable and understandable. Label this final portion of the assignment as "Paraphrase." If your instructor gives you more than one passage to choose from, make sure you add the author's name and page number of the passage to your label.
That should be it for now! Should you have any questions, email me or come by office hours.
