English 201

PAPER #1 SUMMARY

GOALS: To examine the language and content of a particular article,

             and develop the skill to objectively restate the main idea and

             main points.

DEFINITION: A summary is a brief restatement, in your own words, of the most important ideas of a passage or entire essay. Summary differs from paraphrase in that paraphrasing means an exact restatement of someone else’s ideas. A summary still paraphrases by using your words, not the original author’s, but it differs because it is a shorter version of the original. You’ll find yourself frequently summarizing sources in your research paper, in future writing assignments, and in the workplace, so this assignment begins your practice of this valuable skill.

A standard summary is around ¼ the length of the original essay. A summary will indicate the main idea and the main points that support that idea. It might also include a few major details, primarily to provide transition or elaborate on a difficult concept. Brevity and clarity are the main goals.

AUDIENCE: assume your audience has NOT read the essay, and that you’re summarizing it for their understanding.

Step One:

Write a summary of the following essay. 

“Fake News vs Real News”. By Lisa Crate in Education Digest, Sept. 2017, Vol. 83, Issue 2, found in Academic Search Complete.

Read it over carefully, noting the main idea (the thesis) and the main points supporting it. You might want to create a rough outline or underline key ideas.

Your summary must provide these main ideas in your own words, so your next step is to begin paraphrasing the major sentences you’ve chosen. Some writers prefer to work sentence by sentence; others feel more comfortable writing a summary holistically.   Summarize the essay according to the “1/4 of the original” word count. This particular essay has approximately 1400 words, so your summary should be 350 – 400 words.  (This does not include the additional opinion paragraph, which will be another 250 or so words.)

As you’re writing, keep these conventions of summary-writing in mind:

1. Introduce the author and title immediately. The thesis should follow quickly and clearly on this opening sentence, or they may be combined into one sentence.
2. Accurately formulate the thesis and main points of the article. You can provide major details when you think they are important, but they should be abbreviated.
3. Condense the original with precision and directness. Unlike a traditional essay where you’ve been taught “only one main idea per paragraph,” a paragraph of summary will combine several main ideas that are linked. Avoid disjointed short paragraphs of individual main ideas. Instead you’ll find that your summary will be about 3-4 paragraphs.
4. Preserve the tone of the original; in other words, report the content of the essay objectively without providing your own opinion or reactions.
5. Severely limit the use of key words and phrases from the original, paraphrasing them in your own words. This is an exercise in paraphrasing, so you should not have more than 1 or 2 quotations throughout the entire summary. These quotations must be enclosed in quotation marks, even if they are only short phrases.
6. Maintain the order of the original essay. If you start moving points around to make the writing of your summary easier for you, you’ll find that you run the danger of shifting the meaning, or taking ideas out of context.
7. Structure the paper with transitions so that it reads smoothly. This can be a challenge when you’re combining main ideas. Again, it’s a good writing exercise for you!
8. Organize the paper so that the principles of beginning and ending are apparent. Typically begin with the author, title and thesis, and provide some sense of closure at the end.

Step Two:

Following your summary, appraise the main point of the essay by writing a paragraph from one of two positions:

1. accepting the point of the essay and showing how that point relates to your experiences, by using any example from your experience to further support that point.

or

1. rejecting the point of the essay and formulating a hypothesis in contrast, based on your own experience.

Paper Format Guidelines

Please use the format below to write your papers for this course.

Your Name
English 201
Paper name
Date

Your Title Centered Here!

       Essays for this course should be formatted as this essay is formatted, except for line spacing. Therefore, you should also read this essay for more specific directions on format requirements. Before you write your paper, check your font type and size. Please use an easily readable font; my eyes will thank you. In addition, select a regular font (not bold), using either 12 or 14 font size. Set up the page for 1.5 or double spacing.  Please do not use single-spacing. Set one inch margins all around for your page. Do not use right justified margins.
       Do not use a title page for essays. Instead, beginning at the top of the first page and flush with the left margin, type your name, English 101, Paper # (along with the number plus the option # if applicable) then the date on separate lines, with 1.5 or double spacing between each line. Space again and center the title. You must create your own titles for each paper; do not use the title of the book or the assignment.  Use upper and lower case letters to type the title. Use neither quotation marks nor underline, italics or bold font for your title. Follow standard rules for capitalization and underlining/italicizing or put quotation marks around only those words that you would underline/italicize in the text of the paper (i.e. another title). Space (one 1.5 or double space) between the lines of the title, if it is more than one line long.
       An essay should be double (or 1.5) spaced throughout, including the heading, title, and quotations. Spaces only once between paragraphs, not two. Indent the first word of each new paragraph five spaces from the left margin. Indent long quotations (four lines or more) ten spaces from the left margin. Follow guidelines for using MLA documentation in Navigating America carefully, and ask questions whenever you’re unsure..
       When you think you have fixed everything and are ready to submit the paper, please print a copy of it and read it carefully.  Experience has proven that working only on-screen leads to careless errors.  In addition, please be sure you have saved the paper in the appropriate format.  
       To be safe, always save your paper on both your hard drive and a diskette. You may need to resubmit your assignment in the case there is some problem in the transmission.

Works Cited

Don’t forget your Works Cited bibliographic references for all papers!

SUMMARY

GRADING STANDARDS ENGLISH 201

To place these standards into the larger context of the class, first look at “Grading Standards” in our Resources module, which go into detail about the overall standards for our papers, including the research paper.

Because our summary assignment is different from our other assignments—summarizing another writer’s ideas rather than your own–the criteria needs to reflect that difference.  For example, in a summary it’s more important that your thesis be accurate to the original than sophisticated, since you’re stating someone else’s ideas.  Rather than “evidence,” you’re summarizing the “Main Points” of the selected essay for category II.  Plus a new category is added at the bottom, that focuses specifically on requirements for a summary: that you use your own words rather than the author’s, that you maintain the order of the original essay, etc. 

CRITERIA:

I. THESIS

1.   Is accurately  stated at the beginning, with attribution to author and title

2.    Is well focused

II. MAIN POINTS

1.    Main points are accurate

2.     Main points are concise

3.       Main points are clear

III. ORGANIZATION

1.  Paragraphs unified

2.   Paragraphs coherent

3. Transitions clear and flowing

IV. VOICE

1.    Is formal

2.     Is objective

V. STYLE

1.    Uses precise diction

2.     Avoids wordiness/cliches

3.     Uses sentence variety

4.   Maintains summary conventions

VI. MECHANICS

1.  Punctuation

2.  Grammar

3. Spelling

VII. SUMMARY/PARAPHRASE

1.   Uses own words

2.     Maintains original order

3.    Provides opinion paragraph

4.    Fulfills assignment

HERE’S A SAMPLE OF AN EXCELLENT SUMMARY:

Student Name

English 201

Summary of “Always Their Own Worst Enemies”

            In the essay, “Always Their Own Worst Enemies”, by Evan Thomas, Martha Brant, Karen Breslau, Arian Campo-Flores, and Suzanne Smalley the general consensus is that “the biggest crisis facing Hillary Clinton…is her own campaign”.  However, this essay shows that Hillary is a strong, resilient and passionate woman despite the many oversights of her campaign.  She is prepared to fine-tune the difficulties and stay attentive and focused on the next step forward.  When faced with an obstacle in her campaign, whether it is winning at the polls in Ohio and Texas, taking bad advice from her husband and advisers, or going on “Saturday Night Live” and “The Daily Show”, Hillary Clinton manages to maintain her composure and resilience throughout it all. 

            This essay exposes Clinton’s campaign to be unorganized, misleading and often confusing.  It’s accused of mixing messages and shifting its weight as a strategy to confuse voters.  An advertisement known as the “red phone” asks who the public would trust in a time of national crisis.  The ad naturally pinpoints Clinton as the most experienced, but in reality, the voters don’t have the ability to know who will be better if a situation ever does arise.   However confusing the tactic, it did help her win over Ohio and Texas in order to come back against Obama. 

            The essay bluntly states that Obama’s campaign out-manages Clinton’s.  Her two primary campaign staff were rumored to have lashed out at one another in disagreement on more than one occasion and eventually it came down to them being unable to resolve their differences.  With this kind of inconsistency it’s no wonder the Clinton campaign is so unorganized.  Clinton’s husband’s role in the campaign adds to the confusion.    Already, during campaigning, former president Clinton is interfering and it doesn’t seem to be going over well.  In one instance, Bill suggested to Hillary that she should gear her campaign towards negative messaging about Obama.  It worked temporarily and then backfired in Iowa and South Carolina.  Yet despite these pitfalls, Hillary Clinton was determined, insisting, “We can win this. I know we can win this.”

            Clinton is consistently resilient and passionate no matter what is thrown her direction.  As her campaign attempts to move away from the negative and move towards familiarizing the people with her, she preserves that same resilience and passion.  Her passion, a good friend of Clinton’s recalls, is one of her strengths.  She is determined and focused on what’s ahead of her and she has proven that even with the mistakes and difficulties of her campaign she is unrelenting.

            At first glance I assumed that the essay was a negative position on Clinton’s entire campaign, which would include Hillary as well.  After taking a closer look, I realized that the negativity was directed solely at Clinton’s campaign and not directed towards her at all.  In fact, it was quite the opposite with her.  For every negative aspect of the campaign that was pointed out, a positive aspect about Hillary herself was paired alongside.  The essay mounts the majority of the blame on her advisers and her husband which makes her appear as a victim of her own campaign.  I thought that the essay was very well written and it was structured in such a way that it was hard not to side with Hillary. 

WORKS CITED

Thomas, Evan, Brent, Martha, Breslau, Karen, Campo-flores, Arian, and Suzanne Smalley.  “Always Their
     Own Worst Enemies.” Newsweek 15: 11 (3/17/2008): 41-43. Print.

HERE’S A SAMPLE OF A WEAK SUMMARY, WITH COMMENTS IN RED BY ME.

Student Name
English 201

Lacks a title indicating this is a summary

 Hillary Clinton is often viewed as a political powerhouse, which may also be her downfall, but she remains resilient in her fight for presidency. Needs to identify author and title, so the audience realizes this is a summary of someone else’s ideas, not the student author’s own ideas. Clinton has been very persistent in her fight for the Democratic Presidential Nomination. No matter what stands in her way, she always seems to prove that she is in this fight to win it, even through all of the hurdles she has encountered as both first lady and nominee. She has shown the public that she is relentless, which has made some people very critical that she is too determined, even comparing her to Freddy Krueger in the sense that no matter what you do to her, she keeps going.  Her campaign on the other hand, is not as well organized. These previous two sentences are a good paraphrase of the thesis. Her former campaign manager is quite as admirable, as he is seen as the “clumsy geek” in school. This last sentence gets the paragraph off track.

This needs a stronger connecting transition to the last paragraph. Her senate office, on the other hand, appears to be run very well, with a friendly competitiveness among staff members. She can be humorous in the office, and yet has proven to be calm even during tough times like on September 11th. On that fateful day, she was reassuring her staff as they were being rushed out of the Russell Senate Office building. Keeping your composure during such an event is a very important quality to have as President. Most of this paragraph focuses on an example in the original essay, and so loses the overall idea.   It also leaves out significant points that the strong summary sample covers.

 Even throughout all the trouble in her past, through the whole Monica Lewinsky scandal, she has held on as a presidential front runner. Bill Clinton also has received grief from supporting and campaigning for his wife. He continues to campaign for Hillary, and they are battling this out together. This previous sentence provides an idea that is not present in the original essay.  She may be seen as a “tough-minded” candidate, but she is also seen as incredibly resilient.”Incredibly resilient” are copied words from the original, so they need quotation marks.  No matter what you think of her, there is no denying that she is a strong woman who can create a passionate image as well as that of a powerful leader.

This sample lacks an ending paragraph of personal opinion and a Works Cited.

www.eddigest.com4

A s t h e e l e c t i o n o f 2 0 1 6
proved, it has become increas-
ingly difficult to distinguish
real news from fake news. Be-
tween social media posts, ran-
dom Google searches, and the
prevalence of Wikipedia, how
is anyone supposed to know
the difference between fact and
fiction? As educators, we are
charged with not only teaching
students how to find accurate
and reliable information, but
also modeling that same behav-
ior in our own lives.

Unlike 20 years ago, today’s
news is reported in real time
and is often dictated not only by
what is happening in the world,

Fake News
vs. Real News

How do we to teach ourselves
and our students to know the difference?

By Lisa Crate
From NJEA Review

Lisa Crate is a school librarian and media specialist at Christa
McAuliffe Middle School, Jackson, NJ. Condensed, with permission,
from NJEA Review, 90 (March 2017), 26-27, the official journal of
the New Jersey Education Association.

but what the audience wants
to hear and see. In addition,
people throughout the world
are no longer bystanders who
simply watch the news as it hap-
pens. They are often part of the
news itself, filming or publishing
items on their own and instantly
uploading those items to social
media sites for everyone to see.
Taking into account the unfor-
tunate truth that much of the
uploaded videos and photos are
often manipulated or edited to
fit a chosen narrative, it’s easy
to see why so many people are
easily fooled and why it is dif-
ficult for students and adults
alike to filter out truly reliable
information.

So how do educators teach
students to become active citi-

fake news vs. real news

September 2017 5

zens? What skills should be
imparted so that every student
has a better understanding of
the information that confronts
him/her? Through media lit-
eracy courses at the middle and
high school levels, students are
given the opportunity to explore
the news and gain a better un-
derstanding of what information
is accurate and reliable as op-
posed to what might be consid-
ered propaganda. Students are
taught to ask themselves simple
questions that will assist them
in determining the accuracy of
the news they are viewing.

Following are tips to ensure
the material you and your stu-
dents are viewing is worth your
time. Reinforcing these habits is
one way to ensure your students
are looking at reliable, accurate
information.

✓ Examine the author and
the sponsors.

When viewing online news
sources, it is important to look
at who authored the article as
well as who sponsors the page.
Because we are constantly in-
undated with advertisements,
we can become oblivious to
the commercials running on
our computer screens. As a re-
sult, many of us forget that the
sponsors of the page often have
control over what information is
presented.

While researching healthy
eating habits, one of my stu-
dents was confronted with what
seemed like good information,
but the student noticed that the
website was sponsored by Mc-
Donald’s. After much discussion
and further research, the stu-
dent decided that though most
of the information appeared
to be reliable, the source itself
was in direct conflict with the
information presented.

✓ Check for source
reliability.

Once the authenticity of the
author or website sponsor has
been verified, students are then
taught to look at where the in-
formation in the article comes
from. Are multiple primar y
sources listed? Are the source
links able to be viewed? If claims
presented as fact can easily
be disproven through further
research, students begin to rec-
ognize that the material being
presented may not be accurate
and should be dismissed.

Primary sources are a must.
Documents, scientific data,
physical artifacts, and original
photos are all excellent exam-
ples of what students look for
while researching a topic. It is
important, however, to remind
students that photographs can
be taken out of context or ap-
propriated from an unrelated

www.eddigest.com

THE EDUCATION DIGEST

6

story to lend credence to an
otherwise unreliable story. Re-
mind students that primar y
sources are essential in estab-
lishing whether or not a story is
legitimate. Seeking out primary
sources must be encouraged
in every classroom on a daily
basis. Students begin to under-
stand very quickly that if no
such sources are listed with a
particular news item, or if a link
is clicked on and it ultimately
goes nowhere, that particular
article is not reliable.

✓ Look at the time and
place of the story.

Another useful tip for stu-
dents is to determine where
the story was published. Take
a look at the “About” portion of
the site to see if the site is linked
to other reputable online news
sources. Does the site have a
large body of published work
that can be examined?

Check the date of publica-
tion. This alone can be helpful
in determining whether or not
a story is factual. People are
often concerned if an article
or online story is too old, but
another red flag is anything
published as “Breaking News.”
People around the world have
the ability to upload anything
and call it news. Is the “Breaking
News” questionable in content?
Can it be verified as something

that has actually happened?
Recently, students in my

school who were doing research
on the presidential election
stumbled upon several websites
that help the user generate
“Breaking News” stories that
could then be uploaded onto
social media sites. This was
an eye-opening moment for
ever yone and presented the
perfect opportunity to teach
the importance of checking the
facts and encouraging students
to take the time to authenticate
what is presented. Each student
who participated in this class
realized that reposting items
on their social media accounts
prior to checking for accuracy
could cause them some serious
embarrassment and potential
harm to others.

✓ Consider the emotions
evoked by the story.

Finally, when watching or
reading news reports, students
should think about how the
information being presented
makes them feel. Real news
gives facts and information that
can be investigated and verified
as either correct or incorrect.
Propaganda tells a different
story. When students take the
time to analyze how the news
truly makes them feel, there is
a better understanding of what
is real and what is fake. F 

fake news vs. real news

September 2017 7

Propaganda that is disguised
as news may offer some facts re-
garding a situation or event, but
the feelings evoked by a story
are often the true indication of
its purpose. If a student reads
a story and instantly becomes
incredibly angry, he/she is en-
couraged to stop, breathe, and
authenticate the facts that are
being presented.

Students are also cautioned
to consider whether or not an
article is legitimate if they com-
pletely agree with every word
written. It should be a very rare
to almost nonexistent occur-
rence to have everything in a
news story line up directly with
the reader’s beliefs about a top-
ic. After all, what is the purpose
of news? It is quite simply to
inform and sometimes challenge
your thoughts about a topic.

Taking the time to verify
what is being presented with at
least three different reputable
news sources to see what is
true, and what is being misrep-
resented as true, goes a long
way in helping students have
a better understanding of what
real news is. The goal of media
literacy at any grade level is to
have students understand that
they can’t believe everything
they read or see.

✓ Technology overload.
With technology permeating

every corner of our lives, it is
vital that we begin teaching
students from a young age the
basics of understanding the dif-
ference between real and fake
news. Students in every grade
level are bombarded with im-
ages and stories from the news,
and are often unaware of the
impact these news items may
have on them. While today’s
educators already have a lot
on their plates, it is ultimately
in all of our interests to teach
students to look at the news
with a more critical eye.

Nearly everyone has the abil-
ity to read, explore, and under-
stand today’s news stories if
they are willing to take the time.
Asking the right questions is the
ultimate key to ensuring that
the news that is being viewed is
accurate. In this digital world, it
is no longer acceptable to take
every piece of information as
fact.

It is the duty and responsibil-
ity of not only every teacher, but
every American, to view each
tweet, Facebook post, meme,
blog, and news story with a criti-
cal eye. People can no longer af-
ford to blindly follow the masses
and hope for the best. Now is
the time to become interested,
informed, and empowered, and
we must teach every student to
do the same. n

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Peer Review 1 Tool: Summary

Becoming A Reliable Critic by Evaluating Writing

The ability to critique our own writing, to find mistakes and correct them, is developed over time as we read and evaluate the work of others, then apply what we have learned to our own work. To facilitate this process, I am providing some focused questions to help you learn to critique Paper 1 effectively. Particularly since your first paper is a summary, rather than the personal or analytical essays you might be used to writing, the criteria shifts to what the original author is saying, rather than any personal view of the the student summarizer.

You may also use these questions to critique your own work. For your Peer Review, please follow the numbered format of this sheet in answering the questions. For example, discuss thesis first, then main points, etc. Be sure to answer all applicable questions.

Evaluation Questions:

  1. The Thesis

• Following summary conventions, is the thesis clearly indicated in the first few sentences, along with original author and title?
• Is the thesis accurate to the original?
• Is it expressed in the summarizer’s own words?

  2. Main points

• Has the summarizer selected the appropriate main points?  Is there a point that you need to hear about, or more about?
• Are the main points accurately expressed, in the summarizer’s own words?  If a quote is used, is it an appropriate quote?
• If there are any details brought up, are they limited and significant to the main points?

  3. Organization/Coherence

• Are there appropriate paragraph breaks?  (Remember that a summary should not be a series of detached, short paragraphs.  Main points will be integrated into paragraphs together.)
• Does the summary flow well, both between sentences and between paragraphs?  Where does the summary seem disjointed or choppy?

4. Paraphrasing/Style/Mechanics

• Overall, does the summarizer do a good job of using his/her own words?  What sentences might seem awkward, choppy or inaccurate? 
• What sentences are good examples of paraphrasing?
• Are there places where word choices are confusing?
• Are there places where grammar errors distract from meaning?

5. Tone

• Does the summarizer remain consistently objective throughout the summary? 

6. Opinion paragraph

• Does the summarizer take a clear position on the original essay in this paragraph?
• Is the opinion well developed with specific support?  Where would you like to hear more?