Write a summary of and response to one of the scholarly articles or chapters you have found in researching your topic for this semester. (This article/chapter you are working with will thus likely be one you included in your annotated bibliography, though it does not have to be; you can also work with a scholarly source you have discovered later in your research.) Be sure to include the author and title of the article in your introduction. State the author’s thesis and line of argumentation, referring to questions he or she raises as well as to support offered for his or her main claims. Your response to the essay, which should make up at least half of your paper, should voice your own opinion on the issue(s) the author addresses. You will need to explain whether or not you agree with the author and why; feel free to agree with the article on some points but not on others. Altogether, your summary and response should be at least three double-spaced pages in length (but feel free to go over the required minimum length), plus a Work Cited page that lists the article you are working with according to MLA format. This assignment counts for 100 points (10% of your final grade).
Resources:
• To review the differences between scholarly and non-scholarly sources (and to ensure that the article or chapter you are working with for this assignment is scholarly), watch the video on this site: http://guides.westoahu.hawaii.edu/content.php?pid=377131&sid=3088838
• For a sample Works Cited page, see this link: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/12/
• Here you can review the basic rules for MLA Works Cited pages: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/05/
Some Questions to Get Started:
• What is the author’s main claim/thesis? What other claims does he or she make?
• How does the writer support his or her claims? What evidence does he or she provide?
• How does the author position herself in relation to her topic? Does he or she give her reader reason to trust and believe him or her? If so, how?
• Do you agree with the author’s claims? Which ones do you agree/disagree with, and why?
• Does the author leave out any evidence or considerations about the topic that you find important?
Questions? A sample summary-and-response paper, written for a previous ENG 200 class I have taught, has been uploaded to “Resources” in Laulima. While that essay is somewhat longer than yours needs to be and while it includes additional sources that the author draws on for his response (something you can do but are not required to), this student paper can serve as a good template for your essay and can help give you ideas on how to best approach this assignment. Also, please do not hesitate to use the “Discussion and Private Messages” feature on Laulima, where you can post questions that your classmates and I can then comment on and respond to.
After you’ve finished writing, be sure to revise and proofread your work carefully, and check that your essay adheres to MLA formatting rules. As this is one of your primary writing assignments, correct grammar and formatting are part of the evaluation criteria and will figure into your overall grade. Before turning in your essay, please re-read this assignment sheet to ensure that your work fulfills all the assignment criteria.
Grading: In grading this assignment, I will consider how well you summarize the article and if you have successfully identified the main claims and evidence. For the response portion, I will look for how you voice and explain your own opinion in relation to the article. Finally, I will take into consideration the mechanics (in-text citations, grammar, and formatting) of your essay.