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Summary vs. Analysis 5741 Views
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Description:
This video identifies the difference between a summary essay (just a restatement of the text) and an analysis essay (a breakdown of the text). One doesn’t require as much brain power to write (spoiler alert: it’s the summary), but both are opinion-free zones.
Transcript
- 00:00
Thank you We sneak summary versus analysis allah shmoop we
- 00:09
get all kinds of assignments in english class obviously there's
- 00:12
reading on reading and more reading but we're also expected
- 00:17
to write intelligently about what we read Enter the essay
- 00:23
well there are two types of essays we commonly sweat
Full Transcript
- 00:25
over an english class although we might find these essays
- 00:28
haunting us elsewhere too They are summary essay and the
- 00:33
analysis essay Well summaries are easy so easy there's simply
- 00:38
a brief restatement of whatever text we read put in
- 00:41
our own words we don't have to have an opinion
- 00:44
we don't have to evaluate anything A summary only wants
- 00:47
the facts Jax for example say were asked to write
- 00:51
a summary of george r r martin's epic novel a
- 00:54
game of thrones here's ours winter is coming and so
- 00:58
are the murderous ice zombies Ned stark of winterfell dips
- 01:02
his toe in the pool of political intrigue and then
- 01:04
promptly wishes he had good things happen to bad people
- 01:09
Bad things happen to good people and start a family
- 01:12
gets ripped apart now obviously a summary essay will consist
- 01:16
of more than this but note how all we're doing
- 01:19
Here is retelling the story in our own pithy words
- 01:23
while summaries are all about conveying what happened in the
- 01:25
text and nothing more and analysis is a little more
- 01:29
complex in this type of s a wee break what
- 01:32
we've read into smaller components so we can get a
- 01:35
better grip on the whole let's go back to a
- 01:37
game of thrones in an analysis essay we're not going
- 01:40
to spend the assignment regurgitating story We've got one paragraph
- 01:45
up front to get that business out of the way
- 01:47
Instead we're going to ask ourselves questions like wide there's
- 01:51
martin retell the story from so many different viewpoints and
- 01:54
does this technique work Why did martin title his book
- 01:58
a game of thrones When what goes on in the
- 02:01
story all the dying incest and getting thrown out of
- 02:04
powers and stuff it's so clearly not a game as
- 02:08
we normally understand the word game And why haven't the
- 02:11
rulers of westeros clubbed together to buy a throne made
- 02:15
out of something other than swords When we analyze these
- 02:18
questions which cover smaller parts of a sprawling story then
- 02:22
we'll have a better grasp of the novel is a
- 02:24
hole more generally what we're looking for when we analyze
- 02:27
a text is what the author is arguing for or
- 02:30
against how well here she supports that argument and what
- 02:34
the strengths and weaknesses of the text are along with
- 02:37
whether the author considers alternative viewpoints or not As with
- 02:41
a summary we aren't supposed to present our opinion in
- 02:44
analysis or at least not much of an opinion waken
- 02:48
state whether or not we think the author's argument holds
- 02:50
water or whether the author's sources are reliable or not
- 02:54
But we can't rip the author a new one if
- 02:56
we completely disagree with what he or she says So
- 02:59
in brief a summary is a restatement of what we've
- 03:02
read and analysis contains a breakdown of the text and
- 03:06
we pretty much have to leave our opinions at home
- 03:08
when we write these types of essays The good news
- 03:11
is if we do accidentally slip what we think into
- 03:14
an essay well we aren't likely to take a sword
- 03:17
to the neck like poor old ned stark at least 00:03:20.13 --> [endTime] let's Hope not
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