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Assignments: Making Common Topics More Analytical

1. Write Two Summaries of the Same Article or Book Chapter. Make the first one consecutive (the so-called “coverage” model), that is, try to cover the piece by essentially listing the key points as they appear. Limit yourself to a typed page. Then rewrite the summary, doing the following:

• rank the items in order of importance according to some principle that you designate, explaining your rationale;

• eliminate the last few items on the list, or at most, give each a single sentence; and

• use the space you saved to include more detail about the most important item or two.

The second half of this assignment will probably require closer to two pages.

2. Explore Significant Differences and Similarities. This assignment first appeared as a Try This in Chapter 4. If you did not do it then, try it now.

Use any item from the list below. List as many similarities and differences as you can: go for coverage. Then review your list and select the two or three most revealing similarities and the two or three most revealing differences. At this point, you are ready to write a few paragraphs in which you argue for the significance of a key difference or similarity. In so doing, you may find it interesting to focus on an unexpected similarity or difference—one that others might not initially notice.

1. Accounts of the same event from two different newspapers or magazines or textbooks;

2. two CDs (or even songs) by the same artist or group;

3. two ads for the same kind of product, perhaps aimed at different target audiences;

4. the political campaigns of two opponents running for the same or similar office;

5. courtship behavior as practiced by men and by women; or

6. two clothing styles as emblematic of class or sub-group in your school, town, or workplace.

3. Write a Comparative Definition. Seek out different and potentially competing definitions of the same term or terms. Begin with a dictionary such as the Oxford English Dictionary (popularly known as the OED, available in most library reference rooms or online) that contains both historically based definitions tracking the term’s evolution over time and etymological definitions that identify the linguistic origins of the term (its sources in older languages). Be sure to locate both the etymology and the historical evolution of the term or terms.

Then look up the term in one or preferably several specialized dictionaries. We offer a list of some of these in Chapter 14, “Finding, Citing, and Integrating Sources,” but you can also ask your reference librarian for pertinent titles. Generally speaking, different disciplines generate their own specialized dictionaries.

Summarize key differences and similarities among the ways the dictionaries have defined your term or terms. Then write a comparative essay in which you argue for the significance of a key similarity or difference, or an unexpected one.

Here is the list of words: hysteria, ecstasy, enthusiasm, witchcraft, leisure, gossip, bachelor, spinster, romantic, instinct, punk, thug, pundit, dream, alcoholism, aristocracy, atom, ego, pornography, conservative, liberal, entropy, election, tariff. Some of these words are interesting to look at together, such as ecstasy/enthusiasm or liberal/conservative or bachelor/ spinster. Feel free to write on a pair instead of a single word.

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UNIT II

WRITING ANALYTICAL PAPERS: HOW TO USE EVIDENCE, EVOLVE CLAIMS, AND CONVERSE WITH SOURCES

Chapter 8

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Reasoning from Evidence to Claims

Most of what goes wrong in using a thesis is the result of a writer leaping too quickly to a generalization that would do as a thesis, and then treating evidence only as something to be mustered in support of that idea.

THIS CHAPTER IS ABOUT EVIDENCE—what it is, what it is meant to do, and how to recognize when you are using it well. The chapter’s overall argument is that you should use evidence to test, refine, and develop your ideas, rather than just to prove they are correct.