Summary Writing Analytically Chapter 1 till 7 & 9 PDF

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SSH 205 Textbook Notes

Chapter 1 Powers of Observation Principle on chapter = to become a better observer & thinker Dog Fish Problem  writer tries to start with a thesis before looking more openly at the data is in the same predicament as a scientist being expected to propose a theory about the dog fish after having had only a cursory look at one A.NOTICE AND FOCUS (RANKING)  Step 1: Imp question – “what do you notice?”  Step 2: focus on part in which you rank (create an order of importance for) the various features of your subject you have noticed o What three details are most important?  Step 3: say why these three things you selected struck you as the most important B. FIVE-STEP ANALYSIS  Is about really looking at thing – great for brainstorming  Making Observations Systematic & Habitual o Step 1- Located exact repetitions; try changing the words up, if you see the word “seems” quite a few times, try using a similar work instead o Step 2- Locate strands – a grouping of same/similar kinds of words or details o Step 3- Locate binaries – forming binary oppositions (EG open/closed, naïve/self conscious) o Step 4- Choose what you take to be the key repetitions, strants and binaries, which may involve renaming or labeling them – and rank them in some order of importance. Notice that deciding which binaries, strands, and repetitions are key o Step 5- Write up three lists that you have been composing and then write a focused paragraph Anomaly?!? Something that cannot be named – what the dictionary define as deviation from the normal order; help us revise our stereotypical assumptions C. THINKING RECURSIVELY  Step 1- Located a number of different binaries suggested by your subject  Step 2 – Analyze and define the opposing terms  Step 3 – Question the accuracy of the binary  Step 4 – Substitute “to what extent?” for “either/or” D. THE OBSERVATIONAL BOTTOM LINE

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Look for questions Suspect your first responses Expect to become interested Write all of the time about what you are studying

After reading Chapter One of the text, I came to the conclusion that I am a casualty of the Dogfish problem. I tend to jump to assumptions based on certain topics discussed within writing. Previously, I would come to conclusions about a specific topic before I have fulfilled understanding. I need to improve on my research strategy before I begin to write. To fix this problem in the future, I will take my time and look into perceiving explanations rather than hurrying last minute. Proceeding reading the text, I am well aware of what I need to work on.

Chapter 2: Habitual Thinking A. BANKING  Banking model of education – student is given info that she later gives back in more or less the same form; deposit followed by a withdrawal  Is not a bad habit  Paraphrasing – not the same as summarizing it or generalizing about it o Takes the language of the reading and restates it in other words o Involves more than mechanically reproducing the reading, it is a prime alternative to banking. o Causes an individual to think actively based on the original statement B.GENERALIZING  People tend to remember their reactions and impressions  Similar to summarizing a statement accurately – requires practice and skill  Five finger exercise o Will make you a better reader/learner o Vagueness and generality are major blocks of learning because as habits of mind, they allow you to dismiss virtually everything you’ve read and heard except the general idea you’ve arrived at.  Abstraction ladder – general to vague (discussed in lecture) C. JUDGING  Similar to an on & off switch  Reflex judgments close off thinking by categorizing reactions instantly into likes and dislikes – EG not liking a movie  A writer need to take into account how the judgment has been affected by the particular situation (context) and to acknowledge how thinking about these details has led to restricting

D. DEBATE-STYLE ARGUMENTS  Debate model teaches writers to consider more than a single viewpoint – their own POV as well as their opponents  Produces a frame of mind in which defending a position matter more than taking the necessary time to develop ideas worth defending.  “Attack first” that thrives in editorials and TV talk shows  Many arguments we hear on a day to day basis are based on an insuffiencet analysis E. EITHER/OR THINKING (BINARIES)  Analytical thought  unthinkable without categories  Categorical thinking  unavoidable & distinctive feature of how all humans make some sense of the world – generalizing experiences into meanings categories o Illness for EG doctors diagnose it by type  Binaries become a problem when they are used uncritically, leading to what is called reductive thinking  Framing is an issue in either/or terms can be useful for stimulating chain of thought F. OPINIONS (VERSUS IDEAS)  The word “opinion” causes problems btwn students and teachers  Many of the opinions people fight about are actually clichés – pieces of much repeated conventional wisdom  For writing purposes – you need to think about difference btwn an idea & an opinion G. IDEAS ACROSS THE CURRICULUM H. CREATIVE ANALYSIS

Chapter 3: Interpreting Your Data A. PROMPTS: “INTERESTING” AND “STRANGE”  Interests can relate to confidence  Strange invites us to de-familiarize rather than to normalize things within out range of notice B. PUSHING OBSERVATIONS TO CONCLUSIONS: ASKING “SO WHAT?” o Asking yourself “so what” is a central way to spur yourself to leap, to hazard an interpretation  Moving from Description to interpretation: an example o

C. THE MAKING OF MEANING  The limits of interpretation  Multiple meanings and interpretive contexts  What about writers intentions  “hidden” meanings: what “reading btwn the lines” really means  The fortune-cookie school of interpretation vs the anything-goes school  Implication and inference: hidden or not?  Seems to be about X but... The audience for Alex Colville’s painting Family and Rainstorm is aimed towards single mothers post World War II in 1955. The painting appears to be about a family’s departure from the beach to escape the impending storm. Based on there not being a father figure and the use of tedious colours within the canvas, it’s really about the deficient and gloomy reality mothers during this timeframe had to overcome. The painting appears to be about women’s authorization but based on the females wearing white versus the male wearing black and C, it’s really about Y (stay small and specific with the audience). Don’t post this online The effects of Y on the viewing audience be Z.

Chapter 4: Readers’ Writing A.HOW TO READ WORDS MATTER Becoming Conversant vs reading for the gist  To become conversant means that after a significant among of work w the material you should be able to talk about it and start a convo about it Paraphrase x 3  Paraphrasing is commonly understood misunderstood as a summary  Goal of paraphrasing  open up the possible meaning of the words; it’s a model of inquiry Summary  Standard way that reading enters your writing  To recount someone else’s ideas to achieve sufficient understanding of them to productively converse w what u have been reading  Tool to understanding and not just a mechanical task

Strategies for Making Summaries more Analytical 1) Look for the underlying structure a. Use five step analysis 2) Select the info that you wish to discuss on some principle other than general coverage (usually “and-then” lists) of the material 3) Reduce the scope of what you choose to summarize, and say more about less 4) Get more detachment: shift your focus from what to how and why 5) Attend to the pitch, the complaint and the moment Passage-Based Focused free writing  One of the best analytical exercises you can do in order to get ideas about what you are reading  Method of arriving at ideas by writing continuously about a subject for a specified period of time (usually 10-20 min) without pausing to edit or correcting mistakes. No breaks to stare into blank air or to bite pen  PRO: forces you to articulate what u notice as u notice it no delaying B. WHAT TO DO W THE READING: AVOIDING THE MATCHING EXERCISE Applying a Reading as a Lens 1) Think about how lens A both Fits and doesn’t fit subject B: avoid the matching – exercise mentality 2) Actively seek out the differences btwn lens A and subject B; use these differences to probe both A and B (“Yes, but...”) Comparing and contrasting one reading w author 1) Focus the comparison to give it a point 2) Look for significant difference btwn A and B, given their similarity 3) Look for unexpected similarity btwn A and B, given their difference Uncovering the Assumption in a Reading Procedure for Uncovering Assumptions 1) Paraphrase the explicit claim 2) List the implicit ideas that the claim seems to assume to be true 3) Determine the various ways that the key terms of the claim might be defined, as well as how the writer of the claim has defined them 4) Try on an oppositional stance to the claim to see if this unearths more underlying assumptions A Sample Essay: having ideas by Uncovering assumptions 1) Paraphrase the explicit claims; search out the meaning of key terms 2) Uncover assumptions to decide what is really at issue 3) Attend to organizing contrasts; but be alert to the possibility that they may be false dichotomies, and reformulate them as necessary

4) When you write your analysis of the reading, rehearse for your readers the thinking process by which you have uncovered the assumptions – not just the conclusions to which the process has led you C.PERSONALIZING (LOCATING THE “I”) D. THE ULTIMATE TRY THIS

Chapter 5: Linking Evidence & Claims 1 on 10 vs 10 on 1 A.DEVELOPING A THESIS IS MORE THAN REPEATING AN IDEA “1 ON 10” - 1 on 10 = the writer makes a single and usually very general claim (“History repeats itself,” “Exercise is good for you” etc) and then proceeds to affix it to ten examples. - Problem w 1 on 10 = tries to cover too much ground and often ends by noticing little more than some general similarity that might be the starting point but should not be the final outcome of the paper What’s wrong with the Five-Paragraph Form? - 5 paragraph form is a procrustean formula that most students learn in high school - Hamburger style

An Alternative to Five-Paragraph Form: The All-Purpose Organizational Scheme (p130) 1) Write an intro 2) State a working thesis 3) Being querying your thesis 4) Muster supporting evidence for your working thesis 5) Seek complicating evidence 6) Reformulate your thesis 7) Repeat steps 3 to 6 8) State a conclusion

B.LINKING EVIDENCE AND CLAIMS Unsubstantiated Claims - Occurs when you concrete only on conclusions, omitting the evidence that led to them

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Whenever you make a claim make sure that you (1) offer your readers the evidence that led you to it (2) explain how the evience led you to that conclusion Explain yourself

Pointless Evidence

C.ANALZING EVIDENCE IN DEPTH: (“10 ON 1”) - 10 on 1 = h -Phrased as a general rule, 10 on 1 holds that its better to make then observations or points about a single representative issue or example than to make the same basic point about 10 related issues or examples -Helps accomplish the following 1) To locate the range of possible meanings your evidence suggests 2) To make you less inclined to cling to your first claim inflexibly, thereby opening the way for you to discover a way of representing more fully the complexity of your subject and 3) To slow down the rush to generalization and thus to help ensure that when you arrive at a working thesis, it will be more specific and better able to account for your evidence -1 = representative example -10= observations and interpretive leaps that you make about the 1 Pan, Track, & Zoom: the film analogy Demonstrating the representativeness of your examples 10 on 1 and disciplinary conventions A template for using 10 to 1

Marshall McLuhan's 1969 interview in Playboy magazine focuses on targeting university students in Toronto, Canada in 2015.

The audience for Playboy’s interview with Marshall McLuhan focuses on students attending Toronto Universities in 2015. The magazine article appears to be about the diversity between Western men having ‘practical knowledge’ over the Tribal man with their “emotional blends.” Nonetheless, this article is really about the advancement of literacy and the alphabet through time as McLuhan predicts what appears to be true years later.

Chapter 6: The Evolving Thesis A. RE-CREATING THE CHAIN OF THOUGHT 

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The reciprocal Relationship btwn thesis and evidence: The thesis as a camera lens o One function of the thesis is to provide the connective tissue that holds together a paper’s three main parts – its beginning, middle and end o Analogy of a camera lens describes the relationship btwn the thesis and the subject it seeks to explain: while the lens affects how we see the subject, the subject we are looking at also affects how we adjust the lens Moving through a series of complications 1. Formulate an idea about your subject – working thesis 2. See how far you can make this thesis go in accounting for evidence -use thesis to explain as much of your evidence as it reasonably can 3. Locate evidence that is not adequately accounted fir by the thesis 4. Ask “so What” about the apparent mismatch btwn the thesis and selected evidence 5. Reshape your claim to accommodate the evidence that hasn’t fit 6. Repeat step 2,3,4 and 5 several times

B. LOCATING THE EVOLVING THESIS IN THE FINAL DRAFT 

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The Evolving Thesis and Common Thought Patterns: Deduction and Induction o Deduction: process based on inference from accepted principles or the process of drawing a conclusion from something known or assumed; moves by apply a generalization to particular cases in point o Inductive: paper begins w particular data fro which it seeks to generate some explanatory principle; moves from the observation of individual cases to the formation of a general principle The evolving thesis as hypothesis and conclusion in the natural and social science The evolving thesis and introductory and concluding paragraphs

C.PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER    

Description to analysis: The Exploratory Draft Interpretive Leaps and Complicating Evidence Revising the exploratory draft Testing the adequacy of the thesis

D.THE THESIS-BUILDER’S BOTTOM LINE

Chapter 9: Finding & Citing Sources

A.GETTING STARTED B. SELECTING THE MOST RELIABLE & HELPFUL SOURCE

Chapter 7: Recognizing & Fixing Weak Thesis Statements Three Storey Thesis Statement for Final Essay: The audience for Foran’s “MSN Spoken Here” relates to first year female Ryerson University students in 2015. Although this article appears to be about how communication differs from the digital world to the real world, it is really about the lingo student’s grasp on to and how they apply their knowledge into their work as they expect to receive good marks based on essentially using short cuts.

A. FIVE KINDS OF WEAK THESES AND HOW TO FIX THEM (178-86) 1) Thesis makes no claim  Solution – raise specific issues for the essay to explore 2) The thesis is obviously true or is a statement of fact  Find avenue of inquiry; make an assertion which can allow readers to agree or disagree with statement being made 3) The thesis restates conventional wisdom  Seek to complicate. Avoid conventional wisdom unless you can qualify it or introduce a fresh perspective on it 4) The Thesis offers personal conviction as the basis for the claim  Treat you ideas as hypotheses to be tested rather than obvious truths 5) The Thesis makes a overly broad claim  Make more specific and qualified assertions brining complexity in play

B.REPHRASE THESIS STATEMENTS: SPECIFY&SUBORDINATE  

Specify Can a thesis be a question?

C.COMMON LOGICAL ERRORS IN CONSTRUCTING A THESIS 1) 2) 3) 4) 5)

Simple cause-complex effect False cause Analogy and false analogy Equivocation Begging the question

6) overgeneralization...