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Juniors ~ Source Summary

Your assignment for this weekend is to summarize the article from your textbook entitled "Critical Comments on Huck Finn." Your goal is to reduce the article to 250 words, keeping the key elements of the argument intact, while avoiding plagiarism. This skill is essential to the success of research writing. Although using direct quotes will be required, most references to articles in a paper are summaries.

A SUMMARY requires you to reduce the article (or idea) to its essential element(s) and to re-word (or paraphrase) those main points without changing the article's original intent or meaning.

The first step is to READ THE SOURCE. This cannot be stressed enough. You cannot accurately or effectively summarize a source if you do not understand the source, so look up any words you don't know and make notes as you read. This is called ANNOTATION. A good friend of mine has come up with some very helpful advice on annotating sources and writing summaries.

Note that because this assignment does not include any other sources, you do not need to "cite" the article; however, I do want you to practice attributing the source to its author. Use the last name of the author only, and intro each major point by giving the author credit for the idea.

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