Suggestions for 1500 word summary/review paper on The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls:
* Evaluate how well the author’s family fulfilled the main functions parents should meet for their children
* What were the parents’ strengths?
* What were their weaknesses? Which parent was worse? How?
* Did the parents provide their children with positive experiences and fun? At what cost?
* What strengths did the kids develop despite or due to their parents?
* Did the Parents love their children? How successfully did they convey it?
* What was the parental philosophy of parenting?
* Would you dentify with Jeannette at all?
Often times student think if they are doing a summary reflection they do not have to use quotation marks or site the page number. That is incorrect. All that you learned from either Writing Seminar or another writing course related to documentation applies here. Here are the tips to follow:
The first paragraph should have- the title of the book capitalized, the author, the publisher and date of publication – somewhere in it.
When using words directly from the book even if is just a few words such as “ a myriad of specialists” (p.71)[ in the book Final Exam] use the quotes.
The book your are reading is a NON- FICTION BOOK NOT NOVEL so do not say “ this novel…”; and the title of book gets underlined throughout the paper..
When you are paraphrasing a chapter or parts of the chapter, always identify it – such as- In chapter 1, “Resurrectionist”, Chen brings out the point that …-then at the end of that paraphrasing you should put the pages you have summed up (pp.1-34).
If words seem like common words to you but the author has them in italics, you should as well; if they are particular words that the author uses to stress a point, even if they are common words, put them in quotes – ex. Pinter says that “industrial mechanics for tweets” (p.45) are more common now than twenty years ago.
When using direct quotes, always make sure to have the page numbers following the quote.
Make sure you let the reader know whose ideas you are using. If it is the author’s from the book, cite the pages ( as stated before); if more than 3 words from the text are used in a row, put them in quotes and cite the pages;even when you are disagreeing with the author and use specific paraphrased points from the book, cite the pages.
All of these instructions allows your professor to see what you learned from the assignment while given credit to the author’s ideas. This is the proper way to write a summary reflection and follow the guidelines for academic (honest) papers.
