Embracing the One in the Daodejing
Summarize the article “Embracing the One” in the Daodejing by, James Behuniak, Jr.
Write a 300 word summary of the article using They Say templates.
Using summary to condense others’ ideas is an essential thinking and writing skill. Since we’re always entering a conversation when we write, it’s essential that we learn to place ourselves and our writing—within a particular conversation by summarizing what others have said in relation to what we have to say.
Here’s what writing scholars Graff and Birkenstein have to say about writing summaries:
To write a really good summary, you must be able to suspend your own beliefs for a time and put yourself in the shoes of someone else. This means playing what the writing theorist Peter Elbow calls the ‘believing game,’ in which you try to inhabit the world-view of those whose conversation you are joining—and whom you are perhaps even disagreeing with—and try to see their argument from their perspective. (31)
Begin your summary with some variation of the following
In (name the text—use quotation marks or italics as appropriate), (full name of the author) (insert descriptive verb like suggests, claims, comments, concludes, illustrates, insists, observes, points out, argues, believes, thinks, writes, says, etc.)
Summarize the text in your own words, which means presenting the writer’s most compelling, important, or controversial points in relation to the overall claim/purpose of the article. Take care to avoid a list summary that sounds like this: In “blah blah blah,” Dr. Jon X says many things about his subject. First he says. . . Then he says. . . Next he makes the point that. . .
Summaries should not simply outline the text (like in the above example). Again, they should present the writer’s most compelling, important, or controversial points in relation to the overall claim/purpose of the article. Summaries may contain bits of direct quote and/or paraphrase, but those “bits” should be surrounded by quotation marks (as in the case of direct quote) and explicitly introduced according to the guidelines outlined on “The Art of Quoting” document available in the Content section of our course.
Prepare your summary for a naïve audience who has not read the text you’re summarizing.
Write in 3rd person point of view. No “I” or “you.”
Write in standard, edited America English—complete sentences with standard spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.
