Reading Accountability Papers

Aug. 31: Summary Paper

Write 1-3 paragraphs (no more than one page) summarizing either the Policy Syllabus for this class, or the podcast you listened to (ON Being: Interview of David Isay).

A summary should explain what the text being summarized IS, and what it says.  It is meant to capture the big picture, not the details.

Print this and bring it to class Monday, Aug. 31

Grading: you will receive 1 point for this, but you may be asked to rewrite it before you get credit for it.

 

The rest of these short papers will be  Analysis papers.

Analysis is done differently in different disciplines, but for our purposes we are going to focus on writing critical analysis of a text. “Analysis” refers to break something into parts.  “Critical” does not mean “criticize” in the negative sense, or to express like or dislike.  Instead, it is a way to better understand the text, go deeper and create meaning.

An analysis paper should start with a one paragraph summary (see above.) Then it pulls out one quote or image from the text and focuses on its role in the work, and what it means. Text is used as evidence.

In longer papers, you string together a series of claims, each one backed by evidence.–usually in the form of quotes.

In the literary world (looking at fiction or creative non-fiction or memoir) the quote is itself the evidence and where the magic happens–you are showing the meaning (as you see it) in the quote, and how it relates to a general claim about the work being examined.  BUT: for these short analysis papers,  I want to see you do the work of analysis on ONE piece of text.  We are going to work together to deepen your analysis of the individual pieces of evidence.  So the analysis paper will be only 1-2 pages.  This gives us the opportunity to work hard on analysis before you are stringing together multiple analyses into a longer paper.

To write critique of  non-fiction such as  journalism and social science, your paper will still start with summary/identification of the text.  Note, though, that the summary will have a different focus– you want to tell what argument the author is making. Then you will make a claim about the piece and support the claim.  This is still meant to be a 1-2 page paper to practice analyzing evidence, so you will focus on one aspect of the argument.  To read more about how to write this kind of review, go to: https://student.unsw.edu.au/structure-critical-review.  Be sure to look at this page as well: https://student.unsw.edu.au/some-general-criteria-evaluating-texts.

 

Grading: you will receive 1 point for this, but you may be asked to rewrite it before you get credit for it. Instructions for rewrite are posted on the blog.