Summaries

Hello bloggers,

Last week, as all of you know, we had the assignment to summarize two of our reading out of the Murphy/Sherwood book. I was looking through our syllabus today and saw we weren't scheduled to do any more summaries for the year. I quickly realized I felt a little relieved our summarizing days were over, but why did I fee l that way?

There's something about summarizing that just feels so boring and superficial to me. Maybe I'm missing the point, but in my summaries, I just gave an overview of the main idea of the piece, the broke down the essay into a brief outline of the author's supporting points. I was a little stuck when I tried to begin a summary.
In recent English classes, I've spent most of my time analyzing and voicing opinion on a reading; little time is spent summarizing.

While writing a summary about DiPardo's "Lessons of Coming and Going", I found myself wanting to draw conclusions, ask questions, form opinions, and then make some sort of thesis statement. I had to remind myself that analysis was not my objective. After writing the summary, however, I came to a conclusion: Before forming an argument about our readings, we must first have a strong grasp on the author's true, over-arching purpose.

To be completely honest, I read these essays a lot more thoroughly because I knew I had to write a summary about them. I knew I would have to have a comprehensive idea of what it was about. I'm not trying to say that I don't read the essays when a summary isn't required, but the way I read is differently. When I don't have to write a summary, I go through the reading and only highlight things that strongly agree or disagree with. I look for things that are controversial. I look to form an opinion, and sometimes this comes from looking at individual statements and side remarks. When I have to write a summary, I go through and look for main ideas. I search for the big picture arguments.

Neither type of reading is wrong, but I feel like when I have to summarize, I'm forced to look at what the author is trying to say. Google tells me that a summary is "A brief statement or account of the main points of something". Opinion not included. Overall, I much prefer to analyze and form opinions rather than write up a summary. In thinking about an essay, I'm tempted to skip the summary and move straight to the next level. The analysis and critique is the fun part. As hesitant as I am to say this, perhaps I should be forced to summarize more often. It's an essential process that readers often skip.