Essay 1: Summarize the Conversation Assignment Sheet
Purpose:
Your purpose for this
essay is to summarize four voices in a conversation, specifically, Brody (page
593 in They Say/I Say), Carr (page 597), Turkle (page
614), and Fuentes (page 643). The question their articles are
grouped under is “How is Technology Changing Us?” In summarizing these
articles, you are showing how each author answers that question.
You will maintain neutrality in this essay; that
is, you will fairly and accurately represent each position so that the
author of each position can recognize their argument in your summary. We
won’t know how you feel about the opinions in this essay.
You will use ID tags (the author’s name and
signal verbs) in virtually every sentence of your summaries.
You will rely on paraphrasing, primarily.
Although, you may use word-for-word quotations sparingly, if at all. Keep
in mind that a summary is putting another’s words into your own words. If
you overuse quotations, you aren’t summarizing.
The goal for this essay is to help you master
summary skills, become familiar with the complexities of a controversy, as
well as gain practice listening to and accurately representing what others
say in a complex debate.
Audience:
Your audience for this
essay will be concerned, interested, yet uninformed citizens who are
looking to you to provide an unbiased, accurate representation of the
voices in this debate.
Format:
Format your essay in MLA
style
Include an MLA Works Cited page that cites the
four articles
Structure:
First paragraph:
Explain for your readers
the basics of this controversy, and offer a sense of its significance.
For example, you may want to begin by
telling your audience who this controversy affects, how the outcome of
the controversy may affect them, and why this controversy is
important—answer the questions “Who cares?” and “So what?”
You also will want to briefly introduce the
varying positions within the controversy, showing readers very briefly
how the authors are in conversation about “How is Technology Changing
Us?” Read how the authors of TSIS do
it in the second full paragraph on page 292, and look at the
helpful templates for introducing an ongoing debate on pages 761-762.
This will help you briefly introduce the debate for your readers before
you dive into the summaries.
Body paragraphs:
This is where you will
compose a CABIN (comprehensive, accurate, brief, independent, and
neutral) summary of each article, one after the other.
Use one paragraph per summary, for this essay.
Make sure you use ID Tags throughout,
carefully selecting the most accurate signal verbs for what the authors
are doing.
Use transitions to capture the flow of the
authors’ ideas. See pages 771-772 in TSIS for a list of
very helpful transitions you can choose from.
After the first summary, you will need to
transition to the 2nd summary and at times, as part of the 2nd
summary, mention how the 2nd author’s ideas compare or
contrast with the 1st author’s ideas. You can do this simply
by saying, “Where Brody argues X, Carr argues…” and so on. You can find a
number of helpful templates starting on page 759 that can help you
put two sources in conversation with each other.
Then
with the 3rd and 4th summaries, you will want to
mention, where relevant, how the 3rd and 4th
sources compare and contrast with any of the other sources. Your goal is
to put them in conversation with each other as you summarize them.
Concluding paragraph:
There is no need for a
concluding paragraph since you are not drawing any conclusions and your
introduction will say all you need to say about the significance of the
issue.
I HAVE ATTACHED THE ARTICLES.
The post Essay 1: Summarize the Conversation Assignment Sheet
Purpose:
Your purpose for appeared first on Skilled Papers.