MSU The Struggles of St Clouds African American Community Article Analysis Paper

Overview of Paper 1: Summary and Significance (3 to 3.5 pages)

Part 1: 2.5 pages

For the first part of this paper, I want you to summarize the author’s ideas from the article you selected.

A summary essay is exactly as it sounds. It is an essay that is a summary of something else. This essay does not contain opinion. It is not a research paper. It does not use outside sources. Of course, the article you choose to use, which parts of it you choose to emphasize, and even the language you use to summarize with will indicate your opinions and interests. That is inevitable. Yet, the goal is to keep your tone as neutral as possible.

Part #2: 0.5 to 1 page

For the second part of this paper, answer the following two prompts (in paragraph form):

1. Why did you choose this article? Why did it interest you?
2. Were you persuaded by the author’s “report” or “analysis?” Why?

Audience

For future essays, you will be able to choose your audience. For this essay, your audience is the CEO of a company or maybe a professor who is assembling essays to use in a database. That means that your reader is a busy person who does not have time to read complex arguments or language. However, your tone should be formal. Conversational language is not appropriate. Long run-on sentences are also not appropriate. 

We summarize a challenging text by:

1. Drawing on textual evidence through quoting and interpreting
2. Using illustrative examples to ground the ideas
3. Exploring the significance of those ideas (asking So What? What difference do these ideas make?)

You do not need to do additional research for this paper, in fact I encourage you NOT to do additional research and instead focus your energies on working through your article as presented.A few more guidelines:

• Mention the article name and author in the introduction.
• An introduction can talk about the topic of the article you are summarizing, in general.
• Write a conclusion to PART 1 that reminds the reader of the points summarized.

Where to Start

How do you write about something that you may not completely understand yet? Here is where good note-taking and careful re-reading of the text are important.

1. Map out a cluster of the main ideas.
2. Once you have a map or list, try make sense of them by putting them into your own words or connect them to examples—it often helps to work with someone when you are stuck.
3. Finally, with your map in hand, try to figure out the “logic” of these main points—that is, how do they all fit together to make a larger claim?