Interpretive Summary Assignment

Interpretive Summary Assignment

Assignment #1 – Interpretive Summary

Objectives:

·         To learn how to search for appropriate scholarly sources

·         To become familiarized with the UCF library

·         To explore scholarly conversations

·         To practice rhetorical reading and interpretation of scholarly sources

Assignment:

Choose one scholarly article on a topic in which you are interested and write an interpretive 1-2 page summary of that article. Appropriate articles will be found in edited collections (i.e., books with essays by various authors) and academic journals. The article you choose must be a scholarly peer-reviewed article.

Strategies:

Begin to search for articles on your topic by going to the databases from our library orientation. After examining several articles related to your topic of interest, you will decide which one you want to summarize for this assignment. Don’t lose track of the other citations that your found since you may want to use these sources for your final research paper

Your purpose is to present a hypothesis of what the article was “about.” This hypothesis is your “interpretation.” Your task is to tell us your interpretation and support that argument with evidence (numerous examples and quotations) from the text. It is important to think not only about what the article says, but why it is saying it.

In general, there are many possible interpretations of any article, depending on what you choose to focus on. A given article might be about how new writers revise, and from another perspective about the best way to teach revision and the reasons new writers don’t revise more. Your job is not to try and cover every possible perspective, but instead, to focus on whichever perspective the article seems to you to most emphasize. There may be more than one interpretation but there are more and less plausible interpretations.

Questions to Ask:

Here are some questions you should consider while you prepare your summary:

·         What was said? That is, on the surface of it, what was the subject matter of the article and what, briefly, did the writer say about it? This is a matter of description, of trying to paint a very clear, compact picture of the article for readers.

·         What is the writer’s argument? Trace out the central claim, the support for that claim, and most importantly, any warrants (unstated assumptions) that readers must agree with to be persuaded by the argument. What unarticulated attitudes, beliefs, and values underlie the way the writer sees, defines, and solves the problem?

·         What is the writer’s motivation? One of the main tasks for the interpretive summary is not to get at just what the author says but why she says it—her purpose in writing the article to begin with.

·         How will you show readers evidence for your reading of the text? If you say, “this article says X,” what quotations or examples can you give to support that claim?

Format:

At the top of your interpretive summary, you should include the full bibliographic reference for your article in MLA format. Summaries should be:

·         1-2 pages (but leaning more to the two side of that range)

·         Typed

·         Double-spaced

·         12pt font

·         Times New Roman, Calibri, or Ariel font

Evaluation:

Successful summaries will not only paint a clear picture of what was said in the article, but also interpret the article by identifying a central argument and claims, and evaluating that argument. The best summaries will also identify motivations, point to gaps in argument, note any weaknesses in evidence, or look for the implications of the argument.