Question: You can either go to the WCCC Library, go to another library, or you can use the Internet. Of course, you can use your school's computer system, a hard copy of the article from a library, etc.
What you need to do is to select an article from a periodical in your discipline. If we do not have periodicals in your discipline (like for instance, last semester a student was in nano-technology), then choose something from a closely related or somewhat related area. A librarian will be able to help you with this.
Choose a three-five page article from either a trade publication or a journal. Again, if you don't know the difference, a librarian can help you. Make sure to include the article when you submit the assignment. With this one you will likely have to mail it to me, or you can drop it in my mail box.
My mail box is Founders Hall 403, and my mailing address is:
Michael Hricik
English/Technologies Division
WCCC
145 Pavilion Lane
Youngwood, Pa. 15697
The assignment will be done in three parts. Look at the examples in the booklet of sample assignments that I sent to you.
Part one is a visual organizer. You will need to use about four-five or so main division from the main idea, then subdivide those into about four points each. I am not overly picky with this. Just try it. It is just a visual outline. You don't need to do this part on the computer. You can do it by hand, if you like.
Part two is the longer summary of about 1,000-1,250 words (can be more, if needed). When you do this, make sure to include the author(s), name of the article, and the title of the periodical. You can use headings in the summary, if you want. It is up to you how you approach this. The main thing is to condense the main points of the article. No need to use any opinions, as well. You can also use headings in the summary, if you like. Most students will use the same headings from the article itself.
When you refer to the author, you can use his/her title and first and last name the first time. After that, you can just use the author's last name when you refer to him/her. So, the first time you could say Dr. Cryil Wecht said, then after that you could just say Dr. Wecht or Wecht. If you want to include a brief conclusion/recap in this summary, you can.
Finally, for part three you will write a shorter summary for the last part. All it entails is that it is a summary of a summary. You just need to further condense what you wrote. Make it about 1/3rd as long as the longer summary. Most people will make this summary between one-four paragraphs long. The idea here is that you will present the same information three different ways. The reason for this is that some people prefer to see information presented in different ways.
Please note that under Tools in Microsoft Word, there is an Auto Summarize feature. You can use this if you like, for the shorter summary. Word will do a more condensed summary for you. If you don't like the results from Word, you can do the shorter summary yourself. Look in Help for Word 2007. Word 2010 does not have the Auto Summarize feature.