Abstracts and Precis: Summarization Techniques

• Abstracts provide a concise summary, aiding readers in grasping the essence of a paper to decide if a full read is needed, preparing them for detailed content, and assisting recall later.
• An effective abstract is typically one paragraph long, consisting of 6-7 sentences and 150-250 words.

Writing a Precis

• Precis writing distills a passage to its most essential points in as few words as possible.
• Originating from Latin and Old French, "Precis" means abrupt or shortened and should include all vital details for comprehensive understanding.
• Making a Precis requires attentive reading to understand the author's emphasis, highlighting key features, arguments, and points. Consider the evidence, research unfamiliar information, and identify calls to action.
• A precis should include a thesis restatement and a summary of each part of the article to explain key ideas and features.

Do's for Precis Writing

• Read the text carefully to identify main points
• Focus on the main points
• Avoid irrelevant information
• Write a concise summary reflecting all main points

Don'ts for Precis Writing

• Avoid personal opinions, rewriting or summarizing the entire text, and adding superfluous details.

Paraphrasing

• Paraphrasing involves rephrasing someone else's ideas in your own words while maintaining the original meaning, and is preferred over direct quoting in academic writing.
• Citing the source is crucial in paraphrasing to avoid plagiarism, alongside ensuring the language isn't too similar to the original.
• Before summarizing, the main idea or thesis of the original text must be identified

How to Paraphrase Correctly

• Effective paraphrasing involves using a signal phrase (e.g., "Scientists believe that..."), retaining key terms, structuring sentences originally, and presenting information differently than the source.
• A poor paraphrase may only swap a few words for synonyms without altering sentence structure, use unsuitable synonyms, and add unnecessary length or alter the tone.

Summarization

• Summarization involves determining essential ideas and consolidating supporting details. This enables focus on key components for understanding.
• Summarization entails retelling a story concisely in one's own words, highlighting important points from beginning to end, and identifying characters, their desires, setting, and conflict resolution.

REACTION PAPER, REVIEW AND CRITIQUE

• Reaction papers, reviews and critiques are specialized forms of writing used to evaluate scholarly works, art, designs, and graphic designs, typically ranging from 250-750 words.
• Involve skills in critical thinking and argument recognition, but the word critique should not be connected to cynicism and pessimism

Critical Approaches in Writing a Critique

• One can critique a material based on various aspects such as technical elements, gender approach, personal reaction, class struggle, or social structure
• Formalism analyzes a work through its intrinsic properties, disregarding external contexts like history or author. Common aspects include author's techniques, central passages, aesthetic quality, form and content relationships, imagery, interconnectedness, paradox, ambiguity, irony, and unity.
• Feminist Criticism examines literature through the lens of gender, revealing patriarchal cultural aspects. It focuses on gender determination, gender equality, presentation of gender issues, women's oppression, and patriarchal ideology.
• Reader-Response Criticism centers on the reviewer's reaction, asserting the reader's active role in creating meaning. Key aspects include the interaction between reader and text and the impact on meaning through sounds and visuals.
• Marxist Criticism examines socioeconomic differences and class conflict, aiming to reveal the socioeconomic system's influence on people's experiences. It looks into social class representation, the writer's/creator's class, character classes, and economic class conflicts.

Structure of a Reaction Paper, Review, or Critique

• Critiques should be logically organized, including an introduction with the book/article title, writer's name, and thesis statement (5% of paper). A summary including the objective, methods, and major findings or ideas (10% of paper), is also good to have.
• The critique or review should also have an analysis of methodology, soundness, and an exploration of other perspectives (75% of the paper).
• A conclusion with an overall impression, value, benefits, and suggestions for future research (10% of the paper) is good to have as well.
• Other types of reviews include an introduction with basic details and a main assessment, a plot summary/description, and analysis with critical approaches is also good to include in your writing.
• These papers should include questions regarding success, unanswered plot lines, connections to other experiences or ideas, and a concluding evaluation.

Guidelines for Writing a Reaction Paper, Review, or Critique

• In articles or journals, identify the main topic, revisit the work to identify arguments, and relate content to existing knowledge. It's important to focus on the work's treatment of the topic, situate the review within the author's theories, and report the analysis type.
• Make sure to examine support for findings, connection between ideas, and suggest improvements. Comparing explanations to other experts, pointing out missed conclusions, and showing agreement with explanations are all good steps as well.
• With art, use speculative verbs to show interpretation, describe the material, and don't be vague.
• When concluding, focus on whether the work was interesting, exciting, or prompted questions, insights, or reminders of past material.

Position Paper

• A position paper presents an opinion on a subject to persuade the audience, support arguments with evidence, and address counterclaims.
• It should tackle a genuine issue, identify two clear positions, engage the writer, and be manageable.

Analyzing a position in a paper

• Research the topic and list pro/con arguments to support the chosen position and address counterclaims, using factual knowledge, statistical inferences, informed opinions, and personal testimony as evidence
• The Reports, Survey Questionnaire and Methods of Administering It
  • Reports, especially in business, science, and technical fields, vary in types, aims, and structures.
  • Survey reports present data from surveys, lab reports present experiment results, and field reports describe systematic observations. Surveys are the easiest way to gather information from a number of people or groups.

Survey Questionnaire

• A tool with set questions for gathering data in various fields to get views/opinions from people with methods like face-to-face, telephone, paper-pencil, online and mail surveys.

Conducting a Survey

• A survey helps understand people's choices/attitudes to inform actions/remedies, by deciding on questions, creating a tally chart, conducting the survey ethically, and graphically representing results, and also noting personal information.
• A "letter of consent" guarantees confidentiality and, for minors, requires both assent and parental consent.

Information Gathering from Surveys

• Gathering survey data requires knowledge/skill, familiarity with different question types, and the ability to formulate those questions which helps you gather primary data.
• Types of survey questions are: open ended, dichotomous, and multiple response questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

• Matrix questions streamline surveys with numerous questions sharing possible answers.
• The Numerical and Likert scales asses preferences, agreements, and disagreements along continuums to help asses responses.

Contingency Questions

• Contingency questions are follow-ups for specific respondents based on the initial answers, which make sure only those who should answer have to.

Survey Questions

• For effective survey questions, keep it short, simple, and clear and also start with demographic questions, mix question types, avoid leading questions, and pre-test the questionnaire.
• Consider how collected data will be used.

More things to remember about Surveys

• When designing survey questions, remember to use clear language, cover all options, and avoid multiple questions in one sentence.
• Surveys should provide "out" options, consider the time, establish clear instructions, and remain unbiased and not too personal to gain results.
• Survey questions should avoid double negatives and have clear, understandable directions.