Describe and provide an example of anything notable about the style of the essay—the author’s use of Flow or Pause or Metaphor or other voice-creating techniques.
Write a summary of Iyer’s essay “The Writing Life” —a distilled version of the essay’s content, style and organization. Include the following elements in your summary:
In the opening sentence provide the title, identify the author; and state (by quoting or paraphrasing) the author’s thesis. The opening should be a single sentence.
Classify the thesis or “claim” type (“Claim Cast” 214-17) and support your claim choice by explaining what is being compared and contrasted (resemblance claim) or defined or refuted or evaluated or proposed or what kind of cause and effect relationship is established. Ideally, this information should also be a single, long sentence.
Next describe the special organization of the essay by identifying how many parts and then what each part is about.
Next, describe the evidence used—personal experience and/or research from outside sources—identifying author and/or publication of outside sources.
Describe and provide an example of anything notable about the style of the essay—the author’s use of Flow or Pause or Metaphor or other voice-creating techniques.
Address the “ethos” of the author by identifying any element within the essay that establishes the author’s credibility in the subject matter.
The completed summary is one paragraph, about half a page in length.
Use MLA format: 12-point font, double-spaced, one-inch margins, with your name, your professor’s name, the course and the date in the left-hand corner of document. The title of an essay goes in quotation marks.