Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum

A summary is a brief statement, in your own words, of the content of a passage (a group of paragraphs, a chapter, an article, or a book). This restatement should focus on the central idea of the passage. The briefest of summaries (one or two sentences) will do no more than this. A longer, more complete summary will indicate, in condensed form, the main points in the passage that support or explain the central idea. It may even include some important examples from the passage. But it will not include minor details. It will not repeat points simply for the purpose of emphasis. And it will not contain any of your own opinions or conclusions. A good summary should have three central qualities: brevity, completeness, and objectivity.

If you are summarizing an entire article, a good rule of thumb is that your summary should be no longer than one-fourth the length of the original passage.

A paraphrase is a recasting of a passage into your own words. The difference between summary and paraphrase is that while a summary is a shortened version of the original, the paraphrase is approximately the same length as the original.

A quotation is a record of the exact language used by someone in speech or writing. A summary, in contrast, is a brief restatement in your own words of what someone else has said or written. And a paraphrase is also a restatement, although one that is often as long as the original source.

Quotations can be direct or indirect. A direct quotation is one in which you record precisely the language of another. An indirect quotation is one in which you report what someone has said without repeating the words exactly as spoken (or written). [But indirect quotation is not the same as paraphrase. In an indirect quotation, you tend to keep the same wording, changing only pronouns and time and place references. In a paraphrase, you may change the entire wording keeping only the meaning intact.] For both direct and indirect quotations, you must credit your sources, naming them in (or close to) the sentence that includes the quotation or in a parenthetical citation.

• Direct quotation: Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
• Indirect quotation: Franklin D. Roosevelt said that we have nothing to fear but fear itself.

(For when and how to use quotations, see Using Quotations)

Any paper in which you draw upon sources will rely heavily on quotation, summary, and paraphrase. When you quote the work of another, or bring other’s idea by summarizing or paraphrasing, you are obligated to credit – or cite – the author’s work properly; otherwise, you may be guilty of plagiarism. Plagiarism is an attempt to falsely present the work of another as one’s own. The fact that most plagiarism is unintentional – arising from an ignorance of the conventions rather than deceitfulness – doesn’t make plagiarism excusable.

A critique is a formalized, critical reading of a passage. It is a systematic evaluation of the passage in order to deepen your reader’s (and your own) understanding of that passage. Among other things, you attempt to determine what an author says, how well the points are made, what assumptions underlie the argument, what issues are overlooked, and what implications can be drawn from such an analysis. It might be useful to organize a critique into five sections: introduction, summary, assessment of the presentation (on its own terms), your response to the presentation, and conclusion.

A synthesis is a written discussion that draws on two or more sources. Before you’re in a position to draw relationships between two or more sources, you must understand what those sources say; you must be able to summarize those sources. Readers will frequently benefit from at least partial summaries of sources in your synthesis essays. At the same time, you must go beyond summary to make judgments – judgments based on your critical reading of your sources: what conclusions you’ve drawn about the quality and validity of these sources, whether you agree or disagree with the points made in your sources, and why you agree or disagree.

In a synthesis, you go beyond the critique of individual sources to determine the relationships among them. Is the information in source B, for example, an extended illustration of the generalizations in source A? Would it be useful to compare and contrast source C with source B? Having read and considered sources A, B, and C, can you infer something else – in other words, D (not a source, but your own idea)?

Synthesis can be categorized into two main types: explanatory and argument. An explanatory synthesis is the one whose main purpose is to convey information, and an argument synthesis is the one whose main purpose is to convey opinion or interpretation.

Writers explain when they divide a subject into its component parts and present them to the reader in a clear and orderly fashion. Explanations may entail descriptions that recreate in words some object, place, emotion, event, sequence of events, or state of affairs. An explanation helps readers understand a topic. Your job in writing an explanatory paper – or in writing the explanatory portion of an argumentative paper – is not to argue a particular point, but rather to present the facts in a reasonably objective manner.

An argument is an attempt to persuade a reader or listener that a particular and debatable claim is true. An argumentative thesis is persuasive in purpose. The thesis for an argument synthesis is a claim about which reasonable people could disagree. It is a claim with which – given the right arguments – your audience might be persuaded to agree. The strategy of your argument synthesis is therefore to find and use convincing support for your claim.

A claim is a proposition or conclusion that you are trying to prove. You prove this claim by using support in the form of fact or expert opinion. Linking your supporting evidence to your claim is your assumption about the subject. This assumption, also called a warrant, is an underlying belief or principle about some aspect of the world and how it operates.

• Claim: High school students should be restricted to no more than two hours of TV viewing per day.
• Support: An important new study and the testimony of educational specialists reveal that students who watch more than two hours of TV a night have, on average, lower grades than those who watch less TV.
• Assumption: Excessive TV viewing adversely affects academic performance.

The Three Appeals of Argument: Logos, Ethos, and Pathos

Logos is the rational appeal, the appeal to reason. Logical arguments are commonly of two types (often combined): deductive and inductive. The deductive argument begins with a generalization, then cites a specific case related to that generalization, from which follows a conclusion. The inductive argument begins not with a generation, but with several pieces of specific evidence. The speaker then draws a conclusion from this evidence.

Ethos, or ethical appeal, is based not on the ethical rationale for the subject under discussion, but rather on the ethical status of the person making the appeal. A person making an argument must have a certain degree of credibility: That person must be of good character, have sound sense, and be qualified to hold the office or recommend policy.

Pathos, the emotional appeal, is the appeal to the emotions of the audience. Nothing is inherently wrong with using an emotional appeal. The emotional appeal becomes problematic only when it is the sole or primary basis of the argument.

An argument synthesis might be built on patterns of comparison and contrast. Techniques of comparison and contrast enable you to examine two subjects (or sources) in terms of one another. When you compare, you consider similarities. When you contrast, you consider differences. By comparing and contrasting, you perform a multifaceted analysis that often suggests subtleties that otherwise might not have come to your (or your reader’s) attention. Comparison-and-contrast is frequently not an end in itself but serves some larger purpose. Thus, a comparison-and-contrast synthesis may be a component of a paper that is essentially a critique, an explanatory synthesis, an argument synthesis, or an analysis. Both explanatory syntheses and argument syntheses often involve elements of one another, and comparison-and-contrast synthesis can fall into either of the two categories.

An analysis is an argument in which you study the parts of something to understand how it works, what it means, or why it might be significant. The writer of an analysis uses an analytical tool: a principle or definition on the basis of which an object, an event, or a behavior can be divided into parts and examined. It’s as if the writer of an analysis who adopts one analytical tool puts on a pair of glasses and sees an object in a specific way. Another writer, using a different tool (and a different pair of glasses), sees the object differently. For analyses to succeed, you must apply a principle or definition and reach a conclusion about the object, event, or behavior you are examining. Summary is naturally a part of analysis; you will need to summarize the object or activity being examined and, depending on the audience’s needs, summarize the principle or definition being applied. But in an analysis you must take the next step: once a principle or definition is presented, it should be thoroughly and systematically applied in order to bring out and share insights that suggest the meaning or significance of some object, event, or behavior.

A well-organized writing has an introduction, a thesis, and a conclusion. An introduction is the beginning of a paper whose purpose is to prepare the reader to enter the world of the paper. The introduction makes the connection between the more familiar world inhabited by the reader and the less familiar world of the writer’s topic; it places a discussion in a context that the reader can understand. There are many strategies for opening a paper, such as, stating a quotation, presenting a historical review, telling an anecdote, asking a question, or making a speculation.

A thesis is a one- or two-sentence summary of a paper’s content. A thesis is similar, actually, to a paper’s conclusion, but it lacks the conclusion’s concern for broad implications and significance. A thesis includes a subject and a predicate that makes an assertion about the subject. What distinguishes a thesis from any other sentence with a subject and a predicate is that the thesis presents the controlling idea of the paper. It helps you organize your discussion and it helps your reader anticipate it. The more general your subject and the more complex your assertion, the longer your paper will be. Therefore, a thesis should be just broad enough and complex enough to be developed within the length limitations of the assignment.

A conclusion is the part of your paper in which you restate and (if necessary) expand on your thesis. Depending on your needs, you might offer a summary and then build onto it a discussion of the paper’s significance or its implications for future study, for choices that individuals might make, for policy, and so on. You might also want to urge readers to change an attitude or modify behavior.

(Source: Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum, 11th Edition, by Laurence Behrens & Leonard J. Rosen)