Purpose:
The goal of this assignment is to increase your ability to understand what you read and to be able to summarize it in an accurate, clear, concise, and complete manner. Additionally, composing an objective summary will prepare you for the next step in the course: critiquing or evaluating an article or text.
Task:
You need to carefully read and summarize "The Politics of the Natural in US History and Popular Culture" on pages 709-727 of our textbook, From Inquiry to Academic Writing, 3rd ed. Follow the techniques outlined in chapter seven of our text and discussed in class, and compose an objective summary of the essay.
The most difficult aspect usually experienced by student is to remain objective. This is more difficult with proactive essays, so try to remain objective and save comments about your feelings and options for the evaluation we will do as the next assignment.
Audience:
For this assignment, assume you are writing this summary for fellow first-year composition student who have not read the article (and don't have the book) but who are interested in the topic and the essay.
Evaluation:
Your summary should be in your own words and should accurately and fairly reflect the central idea and the major supporting details and discussion. You will need to provide examples of paraphrase and quotation (avoid the use of block quotations in this assignment) in order to illustrate your understanding of these concepts. Your paper should be clear and contain few-if andy-mechnical errors.