Week Two Assignments
Brief Assignment Two: Summary and Paraphrase; Due Saturday 2/13 at 11:59pm on Raider
Writer
Objective: To demonstrate your understanding of a text through summary and paraphrase.
Purpose: Summarizing and paraphrasing are important skills for academic writers. You will need to be
able to condense other writers' ideas into your own words so that you can write research papers, analytical
papers, argumentative papers, and other types of academic writing. The length of your summary will
always be determined by your purpose for writing, as well as by your intended audience.
In addition, for purposes of this course, summarizing and paraphrasing will help you prepare for the
rhetorical analysis, where you will need to be able to succinctly state an author's purpose and discuss
specific passages of an article. For this assignment, you will write two summaries of a text and a
paraphrase of a small portion of a text. Use the discussion about summaries and paraphrases in Part 3,
Section 13c-d of The St. Martin’s Handbook to assist you in doing so.
Description, Part One, Article Summaries
For this assignment, you will choose one of three essays from your First Year Writing Textbook: “Do You
Speak American” pp. 306-316. “Why Good English Is Good for You” pp. 332-341, and “Lost in
America” pp. 351-359, preferably the essay you intend to work with for your rhetorical analysis.
First, you will write a one-sentence summary of the text. Next, you will write a five-sentence summary of
the text. These are different lengths, but both should summarize the text as a whole. The one-sentence
summary will likely include only the main idea of the essay. The five-sentence summary will allow you to
include more of the important points, along with the main point. Be sure to label your summaries OneSentence Summary and Five-Sentence Summary.
Description, Part Two, Paraphrase
After you’ve completed your summaries, you will paraphrase a brief passage, based on the essay you
choose. Your goal in this portion of the assignment is to restate the ideas of the passage in your own
words and do so in a way that is readable and understandable. Label this final portion of the assignment
as "Paraphrase." Below are the passages you should paraphrase. Please note that you need to paraphrase
only the passage that corresponds with the article that you chose to summarize:
If you summarized “Do You Speak American?,” paraphrase paragraph 18.
If you summarized “Why Good English Is Good for You,” paraphrase paragraph 7.
If you summarized “Lost in America,” paraphrase paragraphs 7 and 8.
Homework: Due in class on Tuesday 2/16
Do some research on rhetorical devices this week (using Google is okay). For your homework
assignment, bring to class a list of six rhetorical devices and their definitions. Your format should look
something like this:
Rhetorical Device: A use of language that is intended to have an effect on its audience.