In an analytical summary, you analyze sources as a text, which means you view an article as something written by a person and not just a collection of facts and information. As you write your summary, you need to imagine an audience that is interested in our class topic but that has not read this article. Use your analysis of this text to teach your audience about what the authors are doing with this text and why they are doing it.
● Part 1: An analysis of the rhetorical elements in the context of our course question:
o Introduce the article, including the authors’ names and year, for someone who has not read the text. What does the reader need to know about the text before you explain the rhetorical elements?
o What are the problems or gaps in the existing literature that led the authors to do this research and write this article? (problem/exigence)
o What is the thing that the authors are studyingand how is that thing made specific or narrowed? (object of study)
o What do the authors hope to accomplish with this project? (purpose)
o What is the thesis or argument? What is the new perspective that the authors are offering to the research conversation? (new offering)
o How is this project important or significant to the field of research, or to other scholars? (relevance)
● Part 2: A focused analysis of one key concept:
o The authors’ definition for this concept (if they do define it) and one way the authors explain this concept
o How the authors narrow their focus of the key concept
o One specific noun phrase that adds more information to the concept, and what information it adds
o One example, piece of information, or fact from a source that is cited by the author, and how it builds meaning into the key concept
● Part 3: A connection to our conversation:
o Using two of the sources from class, write a brief paragraph that answers our course question, or a part of it.
▪ Make sure you have a topic sentence, evidence from both articles, analysis, and a warrant.
▪ Use specific reporting verbs that convey the connection between your two sources, such as complement(s), challenge(s), agree(s) with, extend(s), clarifies, complicate(s), overlap(s) with, etc.