The Art of Summarizing and The Art of Quoting

The Art of Summarizing
Having a summary is considered a key to arguing and has strong persuasive power. Some writers do not use summarizing because they feel they don’t want to question what is being said or fear that they are devoting to much time to other peoples ideas. The opposite extreme on the other hand is over loaded with summaries because the lack of confidence in the work. Being able to have a good summary is a balance between what the original author says and with the writer’s own focus at hand. Automatically writers and readers already have view of a belief on certain topics. Having a well written summary come from when the writer suspends there own beliefs for a time and play they “believe game”.If the writer can truly summarize a certain part then the reader should not be able to tell whether you agree or disagree with the text. When writers do not use the believe game it tend to lead to “the closest cliche syndrome”. What is happens is what is getting summarized is not the view of the author, but mistake of what the writer thinks is the summary. Having this can be totally counterproductive to the points you are trying to prove. The summary needs to have focus and spin that allows it to fit in the overall agenda of the paper while still maintaing true to the text. Listing summaries and breaking each down to help your overall clam is vital to help writer with frame. Making sure the “they say” and “I say” are matched up will give clarity, don’t get lost in list summaries make sure they focus the point on the overall clam. The art of summarizing is not just representing the authors view accurately, but in away that fits your own composition’s larger agenda.

The Art of Quoting
Using quotations in ones paper is another way of effective argument. Being able to use quotes gives tremendous amount of credibility to your summary and also helps to ensure accuracy. Having the quotes gives the readers evidence in away, showing them that the information is not fake and did come from a reliable source. One of the main problems with writers and quoting is that the writers assume the quotations speak for themselves. The quotations need explaining in order to show there point towards overall clam, cannot just throw quotations in the paper without telling the importance or meaning. The quotes are there for a reason, they help with the point the writer is trying to make not just show you read the authors work. In order to have good quotations the writer needs to build frames around quotes that support them so they do not become “dangling quotations.” Dangling quotations are quotes that the writer did not give any explanation too. Creating a frame for quotes is really actually easy. First what needs to be done is state who it is the writers quoting and about them, and then make sure to tell how the quote or quotes connect to the writing. A quotation sandwich is the best way to explain the process. Having a statement introducing the quote, then the quote, and then explaining to wrap it all up makes a mean and powerful tool for persuasion. The Art of quoting is to make sure to have accurate response to authors quote but at the same time give the writer’s own spin instead of simply word for word.