Steps to Writing Well--Reading and Discussion #6: The Summary-and-Response Essay Structure

 

 Please note: Our second essay will be a Summary-and-Response Essay. The following assignment will teach you the structure you will need to master to be successful, so please study this carefully and follow all steps in order.

 

___1. First, please read and reread pp. 414-417 "Writing the Summary-and-Response Essay" advice in our text Steps to Writing Well

 ___2. Next, please turn to pp. 171-172 of our text and study "Writing a Summary." Look particularly closely at the sample summary toward the bottom of p. 172 (just after Guideline #6).

 ___3. After this, please turn back to pp. 169-171 of our text and read the essay "Our Youth Should Serve" by Steven Muller. This is the essay from which the sample summary you just read was derived. 

 ___4. Return again to the sample summary (toward the bottom of p. 172) and compare it to the full essay you just read.  Look carefully at how the sample summary was derived from the essay itself.

 ___5. Finally, turn to pp. 417-419 and read the Sample Student Essay "Youth Service: An Idea Whose Time Has Come."  This is a sample of a complete essay.

 ___6. Our second essay will follow this Summary-and-Response essay structure with one addition.  We will blend some of the original essay's words into our essay and give proper credit to those "borrowed" words.

___7. For more help in how to borrow words and give proper credit to them, please visit Working with Words from a Source.