Formal Academic Summary & Rhetorical Analysis #2
[on Another WR 121 Student's Essay #1 final draft]
WR 121, Prof. C. Agatucci - Winter 2004
Worth: 10% of course grade - letter graded. 
Revision Option will be offered if Final Draft is turned in on time.
Late FAS & RA #2 will be penalized 1/2 letter grade. 

DEADLINES: See WR 121 Course Plan for relevant deadlines.
NOTE well:  
TWO COPIES of the final draft of your FORMAL ACADEMIC SUMMARY & RHETORICAL ANALYSIS #2 ARE REQUIRED!!  One copy will be submitted to Cora for grading; the second copy will be given to the Essay #1 student author whose essay you summarized & analyzed.

TEXT TO BE SUMMARIZED & ANALYZED:  Another WR 121 student’s Essay #1: 2nd copies of Essay #1 Final Drafts will be exchanged and assigned in class on date the Final Draft of Essay #1 is due: see WR 121 Course Plan

FINAL DRAFT MUST BE TYPED OR WORD PROCESSED, and double-spaced: See WR 121 Syllabus on Manuscript Form when preparing Final Drafts.

Tip: In formal academic writing, do NOT refer to an author by her/his FIRST name only. Instead, use the author's full name or last name only:  e.g.  "Juanita Student believes that . . .," "According to Morales, . . . ."

LENGTH & MANUSCRIPT FORMAT: This assignment has two parts: (1) Formal Academic Summary and (2) Rhetorical Analysis. Detailed directions for each part are given below.

Learning Goals for this assignment:

This assignment will help you achieve these WR 121 learning outcomes:
Outcome 4:
  Employ one or more sources responsibly (without plagiarizing) in a summary or another writing assignment.
Outcome 6: Use critical reading and writing to analyze and synthesize ideas in an academic writing sample, identifying rhetorical patterns, major assertions, and supporting details.
Outcome 7:  Complete appropriate written critical peer reviews of student essay drafts...
Outcome
10:  Demonstrate an awareness of a variety of purposes and audiences.
Ability to recognize and identify “Strategies of Development” (Muller 25-36), required for this assignment will also develop students’ skills in distinguishing expository essay patterns:
Outcome 3: Demonstrate the ability to use a variety of expository essay patterns, such as definition, classification, analysis, problem-solution, and comparison-contrast.

DIRECTIONS FOR FORMAL ACADEMIC SUMMARY:

1. Length & Manuscript Format:  Your summary should be no longer than one typed double-spaced or wordprocessed page, using a readable, standard-sized font and point size, and standard 1” margins on all sides of each page.  Arial 10-point or Times New Roman 12-point are preferred. [See also WR 121 Syllabus on Manuscript Form when preparing Final Drafts].

 

 

 

   Janet Mikulski [your name]
WR 121, Prof. C. Agatucci
Formal Academic Summary & Rhetorical Analysis #2
13 February 2004

  • The centered title of your formal academic summary will include identification of the essay title and student author, as in this model:

Formal Academic Summary of “Natural Horsemanship:
Being One with Your Horse,” by Noell Devenny

NOTE WELL:  The one-page limit for the Formal Academic Summary (page one of your assignment) includes the standard MLA header and the centered title on the first page of your assignment.  A grade penalty will be exacted if your formal academic summary exceeds 1 wordprocessed double-spaced page.

  • FORMAT the body of your formal academic summary as one single paragraph (i.e. no paragraphs breaks within the summary itself).

2. First Sentence(s) of your summary should formally re-introduce the name of the student author and title of her/his essay (the text you are summarizing), and establish the topic focus of the essay.

3. Summary Body should present the student essay's thesis and main points, clearly and concisely. 

Select material for inclusion carefully and do NOT exceed the length limit given above or your summary will be penalized at least one-half grade.  Staying within that limit means you cannot be comprehensive: omit less important points and supporting detail; generalize the point of specific illustrations.  Use your interpretation of the student author’s thesis, main purpose, and emphasis to guide your decisions regarding what to include and exclude.

Represent the major point(s) of the essay accurately, fairly, and objectively—such that when the student author reads your summary, s/he will be able to agree that you have done so. 

Use occasional “author tags” (e.g., “according to Fish,” or “as John Doe states,”) to remind the reader and yourself that you are summarizing another student’s essay, not giving your own ideas. 

4. Command of Standard Written English; and Effective Style, Clarity, and Coherence will also be considered in instructor’s grading. Please edit and proofread carefully.

What NOT to do in the Formal Academic Summary section:

a. Do NOT give your opinions about the ideas summarized or the quality of the writing (e.g., do not state whether you agree or disagree with the author’s ideas, or whether you think this is good or bad writing).

b. Do NOT repeat or restate points unnecessarily: be clear and provide transitions to be coherent and show relationships among main ideas represented, but be concise and make every sentence count.  And remember, no paragraph breaks! Your entire summary should be formatted as one single paragraph.

c. Do NOT use extensive quotations: keep quotations to a minimum, limited to key ideas or special phrasing.  In general, paraphrase, in your own words, the main ideas both to be more concise than the original student essay and to show your understanding of the student essay. 

d. Do NOT include minor points and details: stick to the major points; mention specific details and examples only if they are given primary emphasis and proportional space by the student author and/or they seem essential to illustrating the thesis or a main idea.

**Troubleshooting Tip: Even after (re)reading and discussing the essay with the student author, you may it challenging to identify the student author's thesis and/or major supporting points.  Nevertheless, it is your job as objective summarizer to identify thesis and main points as best you can (what you interpret them to be after careful re-reading) without making editorial or evaluative comments on the quality or clarify of the student's writing in your Formal Academic Summary section.

DIRECTIONS FOR RHETORICAL ANALYSIS:

1.  Manuscript Format & Suggested Length:  Begin your Rhetorical Analysis section on the second page of this assignment, and be sure to use MLA-style running page headers on the second and any subsequent pages of your manuscript. 

Mikulski 2

  • The centered title of your rhetorical analysis will include identification of the essay title and student author, as in this model:

Rhetorical Analysis of “Skater Punks"
by Kathy Fish

  • Suggested Length for Rhetorical Analysis: 2 wordprocessed and double-spaced pages (or about 250-350 words).

2.  Write a rhetorical analysis of the student essay focused on two or three writing strategies used, to include the following:

a.  Identify and illustrate one (or more) of the Strategies of Development (see Muller 25-36 for help) used in this student essay;
b. 
Identify and illustrate one or two more writing strategies used by the student author in her/his Essay #1. 

  • Be sure to develop and support each of your analytical points by citing and analyzing well-selected examples from the student author’s Essay #1.
  • (Parenthetical) In-text Citation of quotations and paraphrases taken from the assigned WR 121 student author’s essay should identify the paragraph/s in which referenced passages occur.  So the first step in preparing to write your Rhetorical Analysis is to go through the WR 121 student’s essay and number each paragraph (i.e. write the number in the margin next to the beginning of each new paragraph).

Examples:

       Comparison/contrast, definition, illustration, and causal analysis are among the combined methods of development that Devenny uses in her essay.  To help uninformed readers understand "Natural Horsemanship," a relatively new method of training horses that she herself uses [introduced in para. 1-3], Noell Devenny explains older "Traditional training methods" in paragraphs 4-6, to establish the contrast between these old methods and and the new more "natural" methods she will further develop in paragraphs 7-11.  "Traditional training methods frequently involved cruelty and brutality to force horses to submit to our will.  The use of rope restraints on young or wild horses was a common practice in those days" (para. 4).  This definition identifying a characteristic older training method is followed by a specific illustration of the how the rope was used to break horses in a cruel and brutal manner:  "Trainers or owners would tie horses to a post so short they couldn't move or they would tie them on the ground and leave them there for hours, even days until the animal was too exhausted to struggle or fight" (para. 4).  Then Devenny applies causal analysis to explain the damaging and counter-productive effects of this type of rope training in paragraphs 4-5: terrified horses fighting rope restraints often injure themselves and/or their handlers during training (para. 4), ever after associate ropes with pain and feel compelled to resist "every rope from then on just to gain [their] freedom" (para. 5). 

        In "Skater Punks," Kathy Fish employs re-created dialogue to add realistic immediacy and dramatic tension to her narrative essay, and first person point of view to develop the author's internal reactions and changing attitudes to external events.  Rather than using summary or description, Fish plunges readers into the first scene of the body of her essay by quoting the words her young son Conner "gushed excitedly as he walked through the front door" (para. 2). Interspersed are the author's first-person reactions: for example, "Fear and anger seized me.  I didn't know who to yell at first" (para. 3).  The effect is dramatic: readers are placed in the scene, witnesses to the heated conversation spoken aloud among son, mother, and grandmother; but also to the internal emotional upheaval experienced by author-mother Kathy Fish.  Direct quoted dialogue spoken among other skaters at the park, Conner, Grandma, and the mother-author is also used to develop, in part, the second main scene at the skate park (para. 8-19). Especially  important to the essay's thesis, however, are Fish's first-person internal reactions which register her changing attitudes toward "Skater Punks." When the others finally persuade her to get back on a skateboard herself, she forgets her objections and gives in to the "adrenaline rush": "The faster I went the more intoxicated I felt.  What a rush.  I could do this all day" (para. 15).  After reluctantly giving Conner back his skateboard, Fish reflects on her prejudice against skateboarders and must admit that she has been wrong (para. 20). 

3.  In conclusion, explain what we WR 121 students can learn from your rhetorical analysis of the selected writing strategies used in this student essay.  That is, identify one or two writing strategies used in this essay that you and other WR 121 students might use (or avoid) because the writing strategy seems effective (or ineffective)Then briefly explain why you judge each identified writing strategy to be effective (or ineffective).

4. Command of Standard Written English; and Effective Style, Clarity, and Coherence will also be considered in instructor’s grading. Use paragraph form and complete, well-formed sentences throughout, and please proofread and edit your final draft carefully.

***

Rhetorical Analysis Points to Consider

To help you select points to discuss in your Rhetorical Analysis section, consider the following rhetorical aspects of the student author’s Essay #1:

·         Consider the essay's structure.  How is the essay organized?  Can you distinguish sections devoted to introduction - body - conclusion (beginning-middle-end)? Where is the thesis/major purpose expressed? (Does this "essay" confirm, surprise, challenge your expectations of what an essay is supposed to be?)  Is there a logical and/or effective order at work in the arrangement/presentation of successive ideas and points?   and does this organization or structure seem logical and/or effective?  Why or why not?

·         Which "Strategies for Development" (see Muller pp. 25-37 for possibilities) are used to structure the essay and/or support and develop its points? Also consider and respond to relevant questions posed in Muller pp. 6-7 (e.g. methods of support? special terms and expressions? vocabulary and level of discourse?)  What is/are the sources of author's content and ideas--personal experience? professional expertise and knowledge? other "outside" sources --and if so, who does the author quote or cite, and why--how do citation/shelp the author achieve her/his ends?

·         How would you describe the tone (or tones) the author used in this essay?--(as in, tone of voice, mood, the author's attitude toward the topic, the readers, self?)  How does the author present her/himself in the essay?  What is your sense of the person behind the words? 

·         Look more closely now at style--i.e. word choice, sentence structure. Select specific examples that strike you as representative, distinctive, special, effective (and/or ineffective) about the author's ways of self-expression, using language and/or constructing sentences.

·         Who is the intended (targeted, imagined, ideal) audience for this essay?  With what kinds of readers do you think this essay would be most and/or least successful?  Use internal clues within the essay itself, to help you speculate on the author's assumptions about her/his readers.  For example, how much prior knowledge and experience, and/or what pre-existing opinions on the topic does the author seem to assume that her/his readers have?  Do any particular sub-groups of readers--demographic identity, life roles, profession, beliefs, etc.--seem to be singled out (explicitly or implicitly) for special attention?  Do you consider yourself to be an ideal or intended reader for this essay?  Why or why not?

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Last Updated: 23 October 2004


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