Reading these chapters were very tedious for me. I found myself skimming through paragraphs to find the author's next point. In my head I was easily able to summarize the author's own writing into much simpler things, like a paragraph into one or two sentences. It seemed to me that the author repeated themselves over and over, where they could have just simply stated the information once.
I was able to find some useful information about both summarizing and quoting though. The author did a very good job explaining how to summarize correctly. I learned a lot from the part about putting yourself in the shoes of the author you're summarizing. I've never heard of that approach before. It makes sense to do that. I have often seen people summarize another author's work but put their own bias and opinion on it. The excerpt made me clearly understand why this wouldn't be a good idea in the world of academic writing. The book did a great job of explaining how academic writing is part of a conversation and that using summary is simply a way of explaining the different sides of the argument and not as a way of using others ideas.
The author also did a good, although overly thorough, job of explaining how summarizing should be structured. The example of the listing summary was a good one. It was very clear from the example how this would be a very boring way of summarizing.
Overall the selection was very thorough with its examples and information about how to summarize. Ironically, I feel like this section could have used some summarizing to be more concise and clear.
The third chapter on how to use quotations was also helpful but longer than needed. Some of the examples seemed to be repetitive.
The information I found useful was the different ways of framing quotations and inserting them into writing in an effective way. The suggestions of how to use the quotations to the fullest extent of usefulness and knowledge was very helpful. I liked the suggestions of how to use certain verbs in order to imply the meaning of the author of the quotation before even using the quote. The suggestion to overly explain your quote rather than under-explain it was a good point. This not only was good in context, but it also made me realize that even though I though the author of these chapters was over-explanatory and repetitive, some might need the extra and more detailed information to understand the author's points.
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I agree that sometimes things could be reduced a lot, but I am glad that there seems to be too many examples rather than still sitting here confused about summarizing and quotations. I too, learned a few things from reading these chapters and especially liked the idea of being in someone else's shoes. It seems so obvious to me now, because as you said it makes a lot of sense. But before I never really considered it, from now on I will though! :]
ReplyDeleteHaha, well I can see we both had an annoying time reading this assignment. I also must agree with you on your statement that Ch.2, in its consistent approach at reiterating the idea of concise summarizing, was very ironic. It is good to hear that you were able to find some decent elements out of this reading though. The first section about being cautious of bias was very useful to me as well. I hope you find yourself using these tools in your writing in future, for at least I hope I do.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the reading seemed extremely hard to get through... even though the author has good points. It felt like a treasure hunt at sometimes though trying to figure out what was useful and what felt like junk just stuck in. A smaller chapter would've gotten the point across fine. I learned some things also that were some ideas I had never thought of before. Reading your response I feel that I missed a lot of stuff so thanks for clarification!
ReplyDeleteYou guys are all finding this theme of repetition, which makes me have to go back and have a second look at this reading. There isn't so much repetition, per se, as there is unfolding of ideas very slowly. So make sure when you're reading that you don't dismiss one part as identical to the previous when actually there is one small developing difference.
ReplyDeleteThe real question is: How is the writing doing this (unfolding ideas while seeming repetitive)? How is the author achieving this effect on us, the readers, and to what purpose? Is it effective? If not, how could it be done differenty?