They Say/I Say--response 1

 

After reading Part One of They Say/I Say, the exercise that interested me the most is The Art of Summarizing under the title of “Her Point Is”. In this exercise, they state that a general rule to a good summary is to have balance with what the original author is saying with the writer’s own focus. So basically, this means to take all the information needed for the summary of a specific topic, for example, internet sources, and staying true to the author’s points and while also emphasizing the points that interest the writer the most.

For my topic of Women’s Issues and the feminist Lucretia Mott, I obtained many different sources with all types of different views and specific facts. I took all this information and stayed true to what these sources had to offer. These sources were legitimate, so I had no problem using them in my report. Also, many of the points and facts interested me. I wouldn’t have chose Women’s Issues as my topic if it didn’t. Emphasizing the points was easy for me since I agreed with what Lucretia Mott was trying to achieve. Since I am a woman, it made me agree more with most of the ways Mott went along with dealing with these issues. A specific way I emphasized these points was by listing words that I believed that Lucretia Mott showed with her fight and passion. Basically, that was common sense after reading about what she did.

Another way to write a good summary is to play the “believing game” in which you try to inhabit the worldview of a topic and put yourself in a disagreement state of mind and see their perspective. Readers should not be able to tell if you, the writer, disagree or not. I believe I did not do well at this summarizing point. It is hard for women to disagree with another woman’s fight, who is trying to gain appropriate rights for all women in her time period. This fact is basically impossible for this topic.

Satirically summarizing is one other way of summarizing. This summarizing is defined as a writer deliberately giving his or her own spin to someone’s argument in order to reveal a glaring shortcoming of it. Also, it allows the writer to put more of their independent interests into the summary. My way of the satiric mode is when I put my own thoughts and feelings of what Lucretia Mott was all about. I admire all of her hard work she did for women’s rights and slavery. Throughout my report, I let this fact be known by saying what I thought about her.

One last summarizing point is use signal verbs that fit the action. The rule is to try to stay away from using “she says”, “he says”, or “they believe” when using a quote. They recommend you use signal and precise words as often as possible. Also, they say your text will be livelier and more accurate if you tailor your words to suit the actions you are describing. When using the quotes in my report, I first explained why I chose them to support my text and why Lucretia Mott spoke them. In the end, all the quotes tied in well with explaining the topic.

Overall, this is the exercise that interested me the most and tied in the best with my topic Women’s Issues. Also, I learned different ways of summarizing. I will keep them in mind when writing my next paper.