Respond to, TS/IS “The Art of Summarizing” pp. 30-41
Summarizing is one of the most difficult things to do. It’s like highlighting needed information in a textbook. You don’t want to highlight the whole page, but you also don’t want to highlight one or two words. Finding a happy medium in the type of content and amount of content you use when summarizing is really difficult to find and is something that I often times struggle with. In this section of They Say, I Say, there are many points that Birkenstein and Graff provide. They write, “Generally speaking, a summary must at once be true to what the original author says while also emphasizing those aspects of what the author says that interest you.” (Birkenstein and Graff 31) While summarizing it’s important to provide the author’s beliefs, it’s also vital to include what aspects of that summary pertain to your beliefs and overarching point. They make a point to help the reader understand that summary is a great way to follow your own agenda. Birkenstein and Graff do point out that it’s also important to stay away from certain vocabulary to keep writing lively and interesting while still getting the general point across. With this, it’s also essential to keep the audience or reader engaged by making the summary relevant to the point because a purposeless summary can weaken an overall argument.
