ENGL 311 (Section 901, Schedule #33006)
Virginia Commonwealth University
Fall 2015
MW 5:30-6:45pm :: 260 Hibbs
Prof. David Golumbia
Office: 324D Hibbs Hall
Fall 2015 Office Hours: MW 2:30-3:45pm
Here is the wording of this assignment from the course syllabus:
Additional Instructions
This is meant to be a simple and straightforward assignment. It is essentially an exercise in "reading comprehension." The point is to summarize, in your own words, one of the main arguments from the assigned reading. "Summarize" means to put the argument into your own words. Your words can and should be direct, ordinary English, to the best of your ability. Part of the point is that these writings are difficult to read, at least in places, and often use technical and specialized language in order to say a lot quickly. Your job is to translate some of that language into ordinary English that you understand, keeping as close as possible to what you believe the meaning of the original text is.
There is no trick or secret to this assignment. It may, in some cases, seem easy to you: that is fine. You do not need to try to impress me by using the biggest words in the essay, or by making lots of references to the other thinkers mentioned in the text or material I've brought up in class. You can and will get an A on this assignment by clearly articulating in plain English the meaning of an important part of the text. A summary that I feel to be incorrect, but that nevertheless reveals a serious effort to understand a part of the text and that sticks closely to the language of the text, may not get a solid A but will still get a strong grade. Lower grades will be assigned to papers that do not follow these basic guidelines.
You are welcome and encouraged to quote parts of the reading within your own paper, so long as they illustrate your explanation and/or you are directly using them to build your own summary. Obviously, your paper cannot simply cut-and-paste entire parts of the original, but within reason, direct quotation will help your essay.
You are not expected to do research or include any resources other than the text you are summarizing. You are welcome to use the other class readings and the resources I have put up in Blackboard to aid in your effort, but this is strictly not necessary to fulfill the goals of this assignment.
Read the text carefully; pick out an important argument or two from it; summarize the argument or arguments in your own words, using language from the original to show that your summaries accurately reflect what the text appears to mean. That's all there is to this assignment.
Mechanical and Formatting Instructions
The essays should be about 5 pages in length, but please use your word processor to count the number of words; word count and not page length is the official metric for the assignment. The word count for the paper should be around 1250 words. Within reason, longer is fine; much shorter than 1250 words will impact your grade negatively. Short quotations DO count toward the total word count for the essay. Long quotations (of 100 or more words) should not generally be counted toward the 1250 word total for the assignment.
The essay is due at the beginning of class period (or before) on the day that the reading you have selected is assigned. You may hand in the essay either on paper or via email to dgolumbia at vcu.edu (one of these is all you need; there is no need to do both). The preferred formats are the Microsoft Word .doc or .docx formats. Also acceptable are .txt or .rtf formats, as well as .pdf.
Any and all works by anyone other than yourself, for this assignment and any other work you do at VCU, must be properly attributed to the person who wrote that work. In most cases, for this assignment, that will consist only of the primary work you are reading. Failing to indicate where you have quoted other peoples' works is plagiarism.
I have no preference about the format you use to cite other other peoples' works; any format you are familiar with is acceptable, so long as you clearly show where you got the words you are quoting. Other people's words should be encased in quotation marks, if no longer than 3 sentences; otherwise, they should not be encased in quotation marks but instead should be indented and set off from the main text.
EXAMPLE OF ADEQUATE CITATION
The following is an example that uses a bibliography and inline citation format; it shows both a short quotation within the text and a slightly longer one using the indented paragraph style. Using an inline format requires a list of works cited at the end of the paper, as show in this example
Berlant claims that "identity and desire are articulated and lived sensually within capitalist culture" (Berlant 2006, 31). Further, she states that
Cruel optimism about imminence thus grows from a perception about the reasons people are not Bartleby, do not prefer to interfere with varieties of immiseration, but choose to ride the wave of the system of attachment that they are used to. Or perhaps they move to normative form to get numb with the consensual promise and to misrecognize that promise as an achievement. (Berlant 2006, 23)
Works Cited
Berlant, Lauren. 2006. "Cruel Optimism." differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 17:3. Pages 20-36.
Last updated September 2, 2015.