(The underlined phrase in the paragraph introducing Nash's summary is an example of orienting information.) True summary is also necessary to establish a context for your claims, the frame of reference you create in your introduction. He initially characterizes the Cold War in a more or less standard fashion, invoking the language of politics and describing the conflict as one between "Communism and Freedom." But as the foreword progresses, Chambers introduces a religious element that serves to cast the struggle between communism and capitalism as a kind of holy war.Įvery essay also requires snippets of true summary along the way to "orient" readers-to introduce them to characters or critics they haven't yet met, to remind them of items they need to recall to understand your point. The foreword to Chambers's autobiography is written in the form of "A Letter to My Children." In this introduction, Chambers establishes the spiritual tone that dominates the body of his book. Nash characterizes the genre and tone of the foreword in the first two sentences before swiftly describing, in the next two, the movement of its ideas: Immediately after his introduction to an essay on Whittaker Chambers, a key player in the start of the Cold War, Bradley Nash included four sentences summarizing the foreword to his main source, Chambers's autobiography. That way, you inform your readers of an author's argument before you analyze it. Consider including true summary-often just a few sentences, rarely more than a paragraph-in your essay when you introduce a new source. True summary may also outline past work done in a field it sums up the history of that work as a narrative. True summary neither quotes nor judges the source, concentrating instead on giving a fair picture of it. True summary always concisely recaps the main point and key supporting points of an analytical source, the overall arc and most important turns of a narrative, or the main subject and key features of a visual source. Thus all forms of summary (there are several) should be tools in your essay rather than its entirety. (Only when you've established your thesis will you know the elements most important to retain.) It is crucial to remember, though, that the purpose of an analytical essay is only partly to demonstrate that you know and can summarize the work of others. The greater task is to showcase your ideas, your analysis of the source material. Summaries you write to prepare for an essay will generally be longer and more detailed than those you include in the essay itself. It gives you a record of what you've read and helps you distinguish your ideas from those of your sources. Summarizing critical sources is particularly useful during the research and note-taking stages of writing. It helps make your analysis of these sources convincing, because it is based on careful observation of fact rather than on hazy or inaccurate recollection. Summarizing primary sources allows you to keep track of your observations. When you summarize a text (or describe visual material), you distill the ideas of another source for use in your own essay. This work prompts discussion about what’s important in the text and lets both students do the thinking work of summarizing.Summary is indispensable in preparing for and writing an argumentative essay. Consider pairing writers with emergent-writers and asking the writers to take dictation. Have students work together to answer summary questions and write responses. Encourage them to write successively shorter summaries, refining their written piece until only the most essential and relevant information remains.
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