Lesson 11 Prompt: Summarizing

The Lesson 11 Prompt is: write about your experience summarizing the reading. 

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I chose two articles to summarize for lesson 11, the first an article I found online through the Crimes of War Project, titled “Why the U.S. is so Opposed” by Paul Kahn. The second article was one printed in the March 7-13^th issue of The Economist, titled “Braced for the Aftershock”. Both articles were over three pages in length, using Microsoft Word traditional formatting as a scale.

I included Paul Kahn's article in my working bibliography for lesson 9, and chose to summarize it for lesson 11 because of the challenge it had presented back in lesson 9. “Why the U.S. is so Opposed” is an article written with thought, but very deep thought rooted in philosophy, theory of rule of law, and world values, including those of America. It is a very different article from most written about the ICC, challenging to read because of its subject matter, but also because of the advanced vocabulary and style Kahn writes with. Right off the bat summarizing is challenging for me. Yet Kahn's article was so complex that soon I discovered summarizing it meant I would have to state and explain Kahn's main points in a simpler, more straightforward language. This was the most challenging part of the summary, because Kahn's points were so complex that they truly needed all the lengthly explanations Kahn wrote into his article. Summarizing these explanations for an audience who had not read the original article was a daunting task for me. In the end, my summary is not as concise as I would like it to be, but due to the complexity of the article, I still feel there is little else I can do to further condense it.

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

Lesson 4 Prompts: Revising and Reading

In this entry I address three prompts for lesson 4 that address revising and editing written work.

Did you ask anyone else to make recommendations about your revising process? Why or why not?

How did previewing sections of a book (rather than simply reading them) help you to understand the material? (If you are not practicing previewing the written material it will show in your work.)

Which of the suggested tasks from Writing Arguments did you find most helpful in pre-writing your revision? Why?

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Did you ask anyone else to make recommendations about your revising process? Why or why not?

I spoke with a friend of mine who is on the high school debate team, and asked him what the best way to turn my essay into an argument would be. He said that I really needed to take the term 'global revision' to heart, because my current essay 1) didn't make a claim, 2) was too specific to me to back up with solid evidence, and 3) was too informal to make into an argument without lots of work. 

I asked my friend because I wasn't sure if I really should scrap just about everything in my essay in order to turn it into a claim or not. He said that I really didn't have an option!

How did previewing sections of a book (rather than simply reading them) help you to understand the material? (If you are not practicing previewing the written material it will show in your work.)

Previewing sections of a book, before reading it, lets a reader know what to expect. This helps them make connections between what they are reading now, and what they know they will be reading in the future. Just as re-reading material helps by firming everything up, the connections a reader can make from present material to future material also helps the reader understand the material. 

I skimmed each section for all the headlines, and all the paragraph subjects. I took notice of when the example papers and paragraphs were, so I knew that I could connect those specific ideas with a correct way to perform them. Previewing the material answered almost all the questions that arose when I went back and read all the material through and through. 

Which of the suggested tasks from Writing Arguments did you find most helpful in pre-writing your revision? Why?

I found that the the believing and doubting game was the most helpful in pre-writing for my essay. In my essay I did not make claim that I could support with evidence, it was just a recount of one of my experiences without much argument to it. So I took the main idea, that debating was helpful to me, and  made the term more specific: debating is beneficial to students because it strengthens life skills. Using that as my claim, I wrote a paragraph where I believed it, and a paragraph where I doubted it. 

The believing paragraph was easy to write because I personally believe the claim, but it made my reasons for believing it much more clear. I was able to answer questions like “why do I believe that debating is good?”, “why is it good?”, and “what specific skills does debate improve/create?” Once I knew exactly what I believed about debate, I began writing a paragraph that criticized it.

This paragraph was more of a challenge to write, because like I said earlier, I believe the claim I'm making. However, I was able to find certain areas of debate that I actually don't like, such as the time involved, and the emphasis on winning and losing. The doubting paragraph was a counter argument to the believing paragraph, and the claim. If I had enough space (if I could have added another paragraph), I would have brought up a small argument why debate isn't as great as the claim makes it out to be.

-Ace