Assignment Topic:  For this essay assignment, I ask that you write an essay of a minimum 750 words or approximately two and one-half typed pages (and a maximum of three typed pages), excluding the Works Cited page, in which you (1) summarize one of the essays listed below and (2) write how this essay you summarized applies to your own life. Here is the list of essays we have read thus far this semester and from which you may choose to write your Applied Summary Essay Assignment:  ➢ “The College Dropout Boom” by David Leonhardt For this Applied Summary writing, I ask you not only to write a summary portion of your essay but also to relate the reading selection to your own educational experience. Was there a particular incident from your educational experiences that you recalled upon reading the essay? Or do you disagree with something the author of the essay maintained because your experiences were quite different? The purpose of the pure Summary Essay is to show one’s comprehension of a reading assignment, and this type of essay does not contain one’s personal ideas, interpretations or responses; rather, the focus is on determining the writer’s main point or thesis and relating the main reasons or evidence the writer presented in support of his/her main point. In other words, in writing the Pure Summary Essay, the writer takes an objective stance toward  his/her subject, a position that does not include a personal interpretation of the reading. In addition, the pure summary essay does not usually contain a concluding paragraph. For this assignment we are going to write outside the box and you will include your personal interpretation of one of the three essays because you will offer a personal response to the reading assignment. Your main goal is two-fold: (1) to summarize the selected essay on education, identifying the writer’s thesis (main argument) and the major points the writer developed to support this thesis; and (2) explain how you can apply the writer’s argument or main points to your own life in order to make our understanding of the essay you selected a far richer experience. Your Essay Structure: There are many ways whereby you may choose to structure your essay. Remember, we are also thinking outside the box when it comes to the “five paragraph theme.” But here are a few ideas that may help you in preliminarily thinking about your essay. Your Introduction will be one developed paragraph which gives the title of the reading which you will be summarizing, provides the author’s name and where the essay was published, and may include information on the writer you think is important to your summary; but most importantly, your Introduction will contain a thesis statement which is the main point of the source you are summarizing and how you apply this thesis to your own life. The Body of your essay will be structured according to two major parts. In the first part, you will summarize the major supporting points that the writer presented in an attempt to convince his/her audience of the truth of his/her thesis, and the number of paragraphs in this section will be determined by the number of major points you chose to discuss. I suggest you have three major points of discussion. You will need to use a quotation from the reading to support each of the major points you discuss. So, if you have three major points, you will have three quotations from the essay incorporated in your essay. Since this is such a short paper, do not use long quotations (do 3 English 1301 The Applied Summary Essay Dr. Linda Griffin Fall 2020 not use any quotation longer than three lines) and use only those quotations that stand out as important to you in providing support for your essay’s thesis and main points. Please refer to the document “Formula for Incorporating Quotations” (a copy of which I link in this Assignment in Canvas) for some ideas on incorporating quotations into your paper. The second major part of the Body of your paper will be the application of your summary to your own educational experience. Finally, you may choose not to write a conclusion, but be careful if you decide not to write a conclusion, which generally contains a restatement of your thesis, because you do not want to end your essay abruptly. On the other hand, you may choose to write a very brief Concluding paragraph, in which you circle back to the thesis of the essay you summarized and how it did or did not apply to your life. Important items to remember in writing the Rough Draft and the Submission Draft of your Essay: ➢ Although you are only citing one source, and generally you would only give the author and the title of the source in your introduction, I want you to use the MLA Documentation format for this Applied Summary Essay assignment. You must use proper 8th edition MLA documentation format for your in-text citation of quoted material, and you must include a Works Cited page in proper 8th edition MLA format giving the bibliographic entry for the reading selection you summarize and from which you cite quoted or paraphrased material; ➢ Make sure your Introduction carries out two functions: (1) gets the reader’s attention, and (2) provides some idea of what your essay concerns; and (3) contains a clear thesis statement, which is generally, in academic writing, the last sentence of the Introductory paragraph; ➢ Make sure your paragraphs transition smoothly between each other, and repeating words and/or phrases from the prior paragraph is the best way to ensure your paragraphs transition smoothly; ➢ Make sure you include at least three pertinent short quotations from the essay you summarize to support the main points in your summary of the reading selection and the application or relevancy to your life; 4 English 1301 The Applied Summary Essay Dr. Linda Griffin Fall 2020 ➢ Make sure you carefully proofread your Rough Draft, submit your Rough Draft to the tutors (instructions in Canvas), and carefully revise and edit the final submission copy of your Essay taking into considerations both the tutor’s comments, and any comments/suggestions I may have provided to you.