John Lauer
ENGL 250
Summary Reflection
2/3/14
My Reflection
This assignment was a
little different than the papers we wrote so far this semester. Instead of
pondering ideas and information that you could use for a paper, all of the
material was right in front of you in the article. And the order of the paper
was guarded by how the article was written. When it comes to summaries for me,
I have a natural knack for writing them.
Usually the process starts by first reading the article and highlighting as I go to mark the main, important information in it. After, I start with an introduction to what the main premise of the article is and other small information like the authors. Then I summarize the article from the main points I marked and add more information as I go.
The hardest part to writing a summary is paraphrasing all the information in the writing. Sometimes it seems like the author created a really great sentence with the information he needed to say, but you have to change it so it’s not plagiarism. It is also very hard to read scholarly articles and translate all the information inside. Most of the reading is quite wordy and can get overbearing. The easiest part of writing a summary is finding the important information and topics. Usually they are spelled out in the title or sub-headings. I wish I would've had the authors of the article next to me when I wrote it so they could've helped me process the information and write an accurate summary of their work.
The most important thing I observed and learned is how people write in my field. Though it was a thirteen page article, every paragraph was chalk full of information, and every sentence was informative and direct. That is one skill I will have to work on over the next years of college and I already have had much exposure to it in my classes so far.
In the end, this summary was a great exercise for me to see some research by real engineers and practice interpreting that information into my own piece.
Usually the process starts by first reading the article and highlighting as I go to mark the main, important information in it. After, I start with an introduction to what the main premise of the article is and other small information like the authors. Then I summarize the article from the main points I marked and add more information as I go.
The hardest part to writing a summary is paraphrasing all the information in the writing. Sometimes it seems like the author created a really great sentence with the information he needed to say, but you have to change it so it’s not plagiarism. It is also very hard to read scholarly articles and translate all the information inside. Most of the reading is quite wordy and can get overbearing. The easiest part of writing a summary is finding the important information and topics. Usually they are spelled out in the title or sub-headings. I wish I would've had the authors of the article next to me when I wrote it so they could've helped me process the information and write an accurate summary of their work.
The most important thing I observed and learned is how people write in my field. Though it was a thirteen page article, every paragraph was chalk full of information, and every sentence was informative and direct. That is one skill I will have to work on over the next years of college and I already have had much exposure to it in my classes so far.
In the end, this summary was a great exercise for me to see some research by real engineers and practice interpreting that information into my own piece.
Dude! I love it. Particularly this part: "The most important thing I observed and learned is how people write in my field. Though it was a thirteen page article, every paragraph was chalk full of information, and every sentence was informative and direct."
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