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Jim Roth’s Website
The
Summary-and-Response Essay Below is a student essay with the essential parts
of a summary-and-response essay identified. The key is to be sure your essay
has these parts and, in the case of parenthetical citations and the Works
Cited page, has them punctuated properly. Exact adherence to the format (MLA
or APA) takes on added importance because we are borrowing and blending other
people’s words and ideas with our own. FLearn how to borrow
and blend other writers’ words with our own by studying the following: To get started,
please read the professional article “Don’t
Let Stereotypes Warp Your Judgments” by Robert Heilbroner.
This is the article the student essay below summarizes and then responds to. This
process—writing an essay in response to a professional article in our
Viewpoints text--is what I ask you to do for this assignment. Please see the specifics of the assignment
to discover which Viewpoints
articles qualify. Now
on to the student essay. Here are the five
requirements of the first paragraph in list form: 1. name the author 2. name the work 3. add a brief summary 4. build a bridge to your thesis (a
transition) 5. state your thesis at the end of the paragraph Here’s the student
essay with the requirements color-coded: Robert L. Heilbroner, in his article “Don’t Let Stereotypes Warp
Your Judgments,” explains
that assumptions based on stereotypes are not always accurate. He writes that
stereotypes are “a kind of gossip” (348) which help us make sense of our
abstract world. He gives examples of how names, nationalities, places and
accessories cloud our judgment, explaining that these labels save us the
trouble of finding out what people and the world are really like. The problem
occurs when we take these assumptions and use them as our own thoughts or as
fact. Heilbroner’s article made me realize all the drawbacks that
come with stereotyping people, and how deep-rooted stereotypes are in
everyone’s mind. These
stereotypes are communicated through our upbringing as well as the media, and
often become substitutes for reality. Our
upbringing affects the way we view our world and all the components in it. Heilbroner writes that “we begin to type-cast
in our early years” and our families influence the way we “grow up with
standardized pictures forming inside us” (348). When our families teach us by example, we
learn to accept their stereotypes, and be hateful or tolerant, prejudiced or
accepting. If we have been raised to see certain people as “bad guys,” we
tend to stereotype all similar people that same. When I was growing up in the
1970’s, my father would often comment that women with tattoos were hookers or
members of motorcycle gangs. He would cite as examples his experience by
describing living in California, near a Hell’s Angels meeting house. I have
to admit that I carried my father’s prejudice with me. As tattoos on women
became the fashion, I often remember struggling with the notion that the
tattooed women I saw on the street or at the mall were there trying to make
money or looking for a ride on the back of a Harley. This is a good example
of letting stereotypes control our actions and beliefs, whether taught or
self-learned. Media plays a crucial role in
reinforcing stereotypes. The misconceptions various types of media relay
force the public to accept those misconceptions as fact. Heilbroner’s point is that “stereotypes
are perpetuated by the advertisements we read, the movies we see, the books
we read” (348). While
working at a convenience store late at night, if two young white males walk
in, a clerk may not think twice about them. Replace those white males with
black males and abruptly the clerk’s heart may start racing, and he will
likely try not to make eye contact. The only thing going through his mind is
all those broadcasts on the news about black males robbing convenience
stores. Though the clerk doesn’t realize it at the time, the media has
affected the way he looks at other races. As frightening as it seems,
stereotypes can harm us by become our reality. The result of this is closing ourselves to new experiences and new relationships. Heilbroner is correct when he suggests that
“the danger of stereotypes lies not in their existence, but in the fact that
they become for all people some of the time, and for some of the people all
the time, substitutes for observation” (349). By prejudging the world, we close our eyes to
truth, and accept what we have been told. We lose our self in all the
fiction, and increase the chances that we will not discover all that life has
to offer. A good example is the pre-judgments we can make about people when
we first attend college. I recall labeling a hulking-looking “weight room”
guy as a “dumb jock.” Because he fit my preconceived notion of what an iron
pumping, “uh-duh” person looked like, I immediately assumed he was likely in
college only because he could play football. Imagine my surprise later when I
found myself sitting next to him in my advanced calculus class. Added to this
was the result of our first exam when I compared my C+ to his A-. So how do we change our
ill-conceived notions about others? Heilbroner reminds us that “the true
process of change is a slow one that adds bits and pieces of reality to the
pictures in our heads, until gradually they take on some of the blurriness of
life itself” (350).
Perhaps each week we can target one of our stereotypes—say blondes are dumb—and
seek contradictions to these in our daily lives. For me, the “dumb blonde”
stereotype was easy to break when I found myself and the “dumb jock” sitting
behind of a row of blonde women in the advanced calculus class. When the
professor asked for a student to volunteer an answer, more often than not two
or three of the blondes would immediately raise their hands, all having the
correct answer. Works Cited Heilbroner, Robert. "Don’t Let St reotypes Warp Your Judgments." National Relationships Review 22 August 2002: 348-352.
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