English 220- Vielbig

Course Specific Resources

Assignment Instructions

Description: A summary is one of the most important kinds of writing a student does. While writing a summary seems simple enough, it is, in fact, quite difficult because it requires a complete understanding of the article, its underlying structure, and its main points. Also in writing a summary, you need to be strictly objective by avoiding any editorial comments.

The summary should follow the main structure of the article, if one can be determined. Particular attention should be paid to the opening and closing paragraphs because they often offer clues to the main ideas. Also breaks in a text show divisions the author has made. Although a text might contain numerous examples, it is impossible to summarize these; however, short mention can be made of one or two of them to strengthen the summary.

Assignment: Find a journal article about a Native American topic of interest. Feel free to look at your topic from one of the following perspectives: literary, historical, sociological, psychological, political, ethnographical, etc. You may choose from topics that we’ve already explored as a class, or you can branch out to a topic we haven’t covered. The choice is yours!  The article has to be at least 7 pages long. Summarize your given text. Before starting to write, be sure to read the text, once for overall understanding and again for deeper meaning and structure. The thesis or purpose of the text or the question it answers should be the organizing principle on which you base your organization of the summary.

After the summary, add at least a two-paragraph reflection, which discusses why you chose the article; what you hoped to learn; what you did learn; and how this built on the knowledge you have already gained thus far this semester. Within your reflection, you may also want to describe the emotions (e.g. surprise, anger, sadness, etc.) that you went through while reading.  

Style: When summarizing your article, use present tense to talk about the article. For example, when you point out something the author says or believes, say something like “Koch says . . .” Use strong signals to let the reader know that you’re summarizing or reflecting. One way to do this is to use strong topic sentences or short transitional paragraphs.

Structure:

  1. An introductory paragraph with an identification of the work (title and journal), its author, and the thesis or purpose of the article.
  2. Several paragraphs summarizing the article. Cite the summary. (Objective)
  3. Two-paragraph (minimum) reflection.
  4. Bibliography (on separate page)

Native American Analysis

 

Finding journals articles in Search@UW

 

Sample search: Native Americans --peer reviewed items (filter by different topics on left

 

Sample search in Opposing Viewpoints

 

 
Citations -- MLA
 

Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) MLA Formatting and Style Guide

The Purdue OWL site is a comprehensive MLA reference tool, with instructions on in-text citationsworks cited entries, and a sample paper.