The second article I chose for different reasons than the first. “Braced for the Aftershock” is not as long or complex as “Why the U.S. is so Opposed,” but while Kahn's article has a philosophical topic, my second article is writing about one specific event. This means that “Braced for the Aftershock” is much more detailed and precise then Kahn's article. I was interested in the contrast between the two articles I summarized, and indeed, the contrast became apparent. Even though the article from The Economist is shorter than Paul Kahn's article, I took twice as many notes, and ended with an annotation of the article that was slightly longer than that for Kahn's. The details embedded into “Braced for the Aftershock” were necessary to include in the summary, and my job was to find the essence of their meaning. This was challenging to do, simply because there were so many details to sort out. Like my first summary, I would liked to have written a more concise summary of “Braced for the Aftershock,” but short of leaving out important details and connections, there is little I can do.
For both articles I was challenged to write my own evaluation of the article into my summary. I felt that comments about the complexity, evidence used, and neutrality of the article broke up summary flow, and were unnecessary.
All in all, summarizing both articles was a good exercise to go through, however challenging it was. Summarizing “Braced for the Aftershock” gave me a much clearer picture of what the article was trying to convey, and helped me commit some of the information to memory. However, it's hard to determine how helpful summarizing, outlining, writing down main points, and annotating “Why the U.S. is so Opposed” was. I have a clearly idea of the main point, but it is hard to remember all the complexities of the topic. If I am to include Kahn's article as a reference, I will need to read it several more times to further understand the argument being made.
-Ace
