Johnson County Community College - Composition II - Spring Semester 1999 MWF - Summary Assignment

Assignment: Choose one of your two workshop summaries over "Take the World...Please" or "Myths of Bingeing," revise it, and turn it in for a grade. Your summary should be approximately 300 words. As you write your summary, keep in mind these two key points:

• Your summary should be shorter than the original. Relate only the most interesting and important points of the original essay.
• Your summary should be an objective retelling of the original. Do not incorporate your own opinions of the essay or issue of the essay into your summary.

Due Dates:

• Friday, January 29, 1999: Group critique your two workshop summaries. This will be our first peer review session of the semester. You must bring drafts of two summaries to this class period to receive points for peer review.
• Wednesday, Feb. 3, 1999: Final draft of one summary due at the beginning of class.

Revision Guidelines:

Content

• Does your first sentence introduce the essay's author, title, and central thesis?
• Do you cite the writer's main points that he or she uses to support the thesis?
• Do you include direct quotations or paraphrases to present the writer's arguments as specifically as you can?
• Do you sufficiently explain each of the major points of the essay?
• Your paragraph should be no more than one page, double-spaced. Do you summarize any unnecessary information from the essay? Remember, the point of your summary is to present the major points of the original essay, not everything from the essay.
• Were you careful to keep your own opinions out of your summary?

Style

• Is your summary organized logically? Do you summarize the essay by following the same order of points and examples as the original, or, for example, do you re-arrange the points of the original by going from least important to most important?
• Do you include a sufficient number of attributions to the writer of the essay?
• How smoothly does your summary flow? Are you careful to incorporate smooth transitions between sentences and ideas?
• Does your paragraph contain some sentence variety? Do you make use of simple sentences, compound sentences, complex sentences, and compound-complex sentences? Check the grammar handbook for more information about each of these sentence types.
• Are your direct quotations exactly like the original? Are your paraphrases truly in your own words?

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