The Summary/Response Essay

The Summary/Response Essay

Building on the summaries in CO250, the summary/response essay represents students’ chance to begin arguing with the authors of assigned articles. The students’ arguments, of course, can fulfill different aims:

Students might want to inquire by concentrating on additional questions they might pose to the author.
Students might want to convince by giving additional evidence of agreement/ disagreement
Or students might want to convince by analyzing the logic and completeness of the argument in the original essay.
Students might write to persuade the original author of the article to reshape an argument based on careful textual or rhetorical analysis of the essay.

Any of these options works well for the summary/response essay.

One strategy for developing this essay is to go through your summary and Toulmin analysis and create a chart of points you agree or disagree with or parts of the essay that you see as strengths and weaknesses. Based on these lists, you can then jot down pertinent experiences you’ve had, information from other reading, or an analysis of the writer’s logic and evidence.

Three organizational patterns are most common for this essay:

Pattern I

Block of summary

Transitional link with your thesis

Block of response

Conclusion

Pattern II

Introduction with your thesis

Block of summary

Block of response

Conclusion

Pattern III

Introduction with your thesis

Summary point 1/response point 1

Summary point 2/response point 2

Summary point 3/response point 3, and so on

Conclusion

Developing the response sometimes poses problems for students. If you draw on your own experience and reading, you’ll find it easier to flesh out your support for your position. If you decide to analyze the logic (or some other aspect of how the original essay is written), then be sure to include all the steps in your thinking about the essay. Such detailed analysis constitutes the support or development in an analytic response.

Please keep in mind two other points about the response:

Counter-assertion--merely saying, "The author is wrong when he says X"--and
re-assertion--"The author is right when he says X"--are not developed responses. You need to go beyond assertion to detailed support of why you agree or disagree, why you see a flaw in logic, or why you think the style defeats the author’s purpose, for instance.

Re-summarizing the author’s support does not constitute your own development. You need to generate details other than those the author cites in the original essay.

Here are some other points you might want to keep in mind as you write and revise your summary/response essay:

generally, a detailed response is about 2-3 times longer than a detailed summary;
usually, the response picks up on key points of original essay, not minor points exclusively;
the response, particularly the thesis or claim, makes clear both the original author’s position and the student’s response position;
if you simply tack the response on to a summary you’ve already drafted, the link between summary and response can look totally mechanical; consider revising parts of the summary so that you lead smoothly into the response (particularly if you choose organizational pattern I);
relate your response to the summary by continuing to use author tags ("The author claims. . . ," "X asserts. . . ," "Although Y argues this, I believe. . . ," and so on) throughout the response.