Not Quote, Not Paraphrase
For a 3000-word paper with a healthy blend of original scholarship and relevant citation, you may:
- consult 50 sources,
- save links to just 30 of those,
- actively pursue 25 of those,
- produce annotated bibliographic entries for 20 of those,
- and directly quote 7.
Too much quotation leaves little room for your own original language and discourages readers from considering your position. Too much quotation also subjects you to the not-always-persuasive rhetorical style of the original authors.
For the dozen or so sources you cite but don’t directly quote, the perfect blend of original material and your own good reasoning is the Purposeful Summary.
Good for What it Leaves Out
“Purposeful summary” reduces sources to their smallest useful content.
- It eliminates most of the original language.
- It can eliminate the author’s argument.
- It can eliminate the author’s logic, rhetoric, ethical justifications, conclusions.
- It can eliminate the oppositional stance or attitude of the original.
- It can remove the material from its context.
Better for What it Adds
Removed from its context, the evidence in a source can be used to advance your own thesis. Your Purposeful Summary makes claims and draws reasonable conclusions based on the evidence from the material, whether or not those conclusions coincide with the original author’s argument.
Retaining Integrity
An Honest and Purposeful Summary does, however, keep faith with the original author. It may remove the material from its context, but it must not misrepresent the author’s position. The author may have squandered or misinterpreted the evidence, which our new Summary can remedy, but we don’t want to be guilty of either. We will share a fair report of the original author’s failure, or we will suppress the author’s point of view altogether and present only the material of value to our paper.
A propaganda film might depict the mistreatment of animals in a factory henhouse, for example, and draw the conclusion that no one can humanely eat chickens. But a Purposeful Summary is not obligated to draw the same conclusion, and might instead take issue with the methodology of the film’s construction or the generalizations it draws from scant evidence, or it could cite the maltreatment to advocate for a more humane approach to farming. The only thing it cannot do is mislead readers about the original author’s position or intent.
When Summary is More than just Summary
Today we’ll examine some articles that have counterintuitive themes, to gain a better understanding of counterintuitivity, and to practice making purposeful summaries.
When I ask you to make purposeful summaries of articles that just happen to have counterintuitive themes, I want you to be able to read some examples, and at the same time, gain a better understanding of what I mean by counterintuitive.
A “purposeful summary” doesn’t bother to recount the entire subject matter of an article. It may in fact share very little of the content of the original source. It does, however, remain true to the original, or to a credible version of the original.
A “purposeful summary” is an argument. It shapes its version of the subject matter of another author’s work to prove a point of its own. In doing so, it recounts only a small part of the original subject matter.
It tells the truth. Although it has its own point of view, the purposeful summary is true to the original, or to a credible version of the original. It doesn’t lie or mislead readers about the author’s intentions or claims.
It can dispute the original. A purposeful summary of an article can prove the opposite of what a misguided author intended. A propaganda film might glorify a particular war, for example, while your purposeful summary of the film proves that the filmmaker is wrong or deceptive.
Models of Good Purposeful Summary:
1) Ethics of a Three-Parent Baby
It seems counterintuitive that human life, which everyone knows gets DNA from two parents when male sperm fertilizes a female egg, could ever require, or even make use of, the DNA of three parents. But that’s exactly what is happening.
The world’s first ‘three-parent’ baby was born in 2016 to treat a couple’s infertility issues. This controversial technique allows parents with rare genetic mutations to have healthy babies and has only been legally approved in the UK. This technique is widely used to ensure mitochondrial myopathies aren’t passed down from mother to offspring.
The contribution of healthy mitochondrial DNA to the fertilized egg will prevent birth defects that could result in seizures and decreased muscle formation in the absence of the healthy DNA. As usual, critics worry that this first tiny advance in promoting healthy babies will open the floodgates to every sort of god-playing, frankenstein-creating unscrupulous experimentation imaginable.
Others fret that only the rich will be able to afford healthy babies. In all likelihood, both these scenarios will play out just as they fear.
2) Africa Should Screen Americans for Measles
It seems counterintuitive but is possibly true that Africans have more to fear from American visitors than we have to fear from them. Nigerian writer and lawyer Elnathan John earned 35,000 retweets or favorites by tweeting that he was concerned for “measles-ravaged” America and hoped Africa was screening American visitors.
His comment was a sly rejoinder to the demand heard often in the media during the Ebola scare that all Africans should be screened for disease before visiting America. While Ebola is certainly scary, measles is nine times as contagious, and while it isn’t usually fatal, it killed 430 children a day in 2011 worldwide.
Also counterintuitive are the rules for immunizations in the United States. All US immigrants are required to prove they’ve received the full protocol of immunizations, including one for measles. But many American jurisdictions permit US citizens to opt out of vaccinations, including the measles vaccine, on religious or philosophical grounds.
When tens of thousands of Central American children crossed the US border from Mexico last year, they were all forcibly immunized against measles, even though their countries of origin have higher immunization rates than the US (El Salvador, 94 %; Guatemala, 93%; United States, 91%).
Nevertheless, we remain as a country more irrationally afraid of “disease-carrying” immigrants and visitors than we do of our own “anti-vaxxer” citizens who could be immunized if they chose to but choose not to.
[Bonus Source: Here’s how Slate.com reports on the recent US measles outbreak, as part of a series of posts in which American events are described using the tropes and tone normally employed by the American media to describe events in other countries.]
3) Is this Photo Ethical?
It seems counterintuitive that we send photographers into scenes of grave danger on the basis of our need to see, to fully understand, the catastrophes of natural phenomena or disastrous human choices, but then accuse them of sensationalizing their subjects when they deliver precisely what we have asked them to produce.
When the sudden earthquake of January, 2010, killed 230,000 Haitians, nature was not the only killer. Concrete structures built according to lax building codes (or built without oversight of any kind, or after bribing code officials) contributed thousands of deaths when they crashed down on their inhabitants. And when lawlessness and looting followed the quake, flawed humans killed one another; property owners, thieves, and police all clashed until even more blood was spilled over what few valuables remained.
Photographers rushed to Haiti in droves to record the chaos and devastation, perhaps to raise awareness, certainly to assist in the fundraising efforts for disaster relief, perhaps to win themselves some photography or journalism awards.
The images of 15-year-old Fabienne Cherisma, shot by police while crossing a rooftop with an armload of stolen framed pictures, appear to have been taken by a lone photographer who happened on the scene and shot them with frank detachment. They are shocking but perhaps have value in engaging our passions and our compassion.
But the “other” photo, the side view that reveals seven photographers all crouching to capture virtually the same shot of the fallen Fabienne (one of which was named the best International News Image at the Swedish Picture of the Year Award) shocks everyone who sees it for an entirely different reason: it makes them look like vultures waiting to feed off her corpse.
Consider what we demand of the people we send to do this job. We insist they share us truthful images we can trust to tell the real story of human triumphs and tragedies. But we also want them to disappear, to not be part of the story, to keep their hands out of the situation so that we can believe it. And when they do what we ask, we condemn them for their inhumanity, for their very “professionalism” in the face of suffering.
Photographers gather around Fabienne
In-Class Exercise
Choose one of the 3 Summaries to read and analyze.
Does the summary you chose “make claims and draw reasonable conclusions based on the evidence from the material”?
In other words, can you gather the “argument value” of the summary apart from its presenting the factual material?
Counterintuitive Fall 2024 
1.) Three Parent Babies
– I think this summary is mostly effective, they use information from other sources but they use too much of others opinions in comparison to how much they write about theirs. In their writing they speak about the information about three parent babies, critics opinions and only touch on their opinion in one sentence at the end of their work. A piece of feedback I would give is to develop their opinion more and expand on that, they are just relaying information they found which makes the piece less substantial compared to a piece that has the information but also delves into an opinion.
Very thoughtful and reasonable, PlaneFan.
The “Ethics of a Three Parent Baby” presents a story of how a three parent baby was made possible by genetic modification due to the parents infertility. The claim of the article is that due to the nature of the experiment, it may cause issues down the line such as humans playing “god” in order to genetically modify offspring, and further more, that if it were to become a normalcy, that only the rich would be able to be able to afford healthy children in the future.
I can gather that the argument in the article would be of mainly of the ethical nature of the experiment and whether is is really alright to change the natural way of reproduction.It can also be argued that this is a scientific breakthrough of sorts, and being able to produce a child who is still the biological child of two infertile parents can be seen as a good thing. The argument would be to weigh the two sides of the experiment and in your own values decide which outweighs the other.
What you say is true, KJ, but the question is whether the author DEPLOYS the evidence to prove a point. Does the author, for example, approve of the procedure, with limits, without limits? Does the author on the other hand advocate for further study before the procedure is permitted?
The summary I chose was The Ethics of a Three-Parent Baby. This summary did make claims and drew reasonable conclusions based on the evidence from the material because it used a little bit of scientific data to back up the claim. This summary also provided an example of when this has happened. I can gather the argument value of the summary because there will be people who don’t really know anything about science and they could argue the fact that a baby cannot have three parents, it can only have two. People could also argue the fact that the sperm or egg donor shouldn’t be considered a “parent” to the child.
You declare that the author has drawn conclusions from the evidence but without naming the conclusions, 7777777. Of course “people could argue” all day long, but does the author contribute a point of view to the argument?
Does the summary you chose “make claims and draw reasonable conclusions based on the evidence from the material”?
Yes, I believe that the evidence was very compelling, especially the image being included, which was eye opening. A young girl laid murdered while the island of Haiti was in turmoil, and they just photographed her corpse “like vultures” as the text states. The image taken of the photographers show how remorse and respect is being disregarded as they all scramble to do their jobs.
In other words, can you gather the “argument value” of the summary apart from its presenting the factual material?
The argument of how photographers feed off disastrous events for their own personal gain is presented as a main idea, while some had pure intentions, a lot of people were in search of a journalism or photography award. Is this real professionalism? Are their photos really helping the Haitians? They are being exploited, some for charity to help the Haitians, and some for news outlets to help the photographers, the text touched on both possibilities.
Nice work, Cartman. You touched on everything except our own complicity. Do we share a little responsibility for demanding results just like the Fabienne photos from our professional correspondents?
I chose the article, “Is this Photo Ethical” During the article it explains how these photographers are going to these places after destruction or sadness has occurred to document what has happened. And while sometimes theses pictures are to bring awareness to what has happened, that is not always the case as with the 15 year old girl who was killed the photographer’s showed zero remorse and all instantly crowded around the lifeless body for the best picture. This is why I would claim these photographers are not ethical, more then half the time these people don’t care for the people or person this tragedy befalls but only to further their careers and to win awards. There is good that can come from this however the bad in this case it much more.
That may very well be, HockeyPlayer, but what about the author of the Summary? You don’t actually answer the question of whether the author draws seemingly reasonable conclusions from the evidence presented. What’s your answer?
The summary I chose was “Ethics of a Three-Parent Baby”. The summary does make claims about how having a three-parent baby is very controversial and gets a lot of criticism. Some claims are that critics believe this could lead to weird genetic mutations, and that only the rich can afford to do this.
The author of this summary seems to be slightly against and in fear of the ethics of a three-parent child and how it would be playing God. The summary does discuss the positives of this, but also adds the counter arguments that discuss the negatives directly after.
I’m about halfway with you here, ColdIce. The author makes claims “about how [the procedure] is controversial” and often critiqued. But those are not arguable or important claims. What we want to know from you is whether the author takes a position or at least supports one by presenting the evidence WITH attitude. That you begin to address in the second half of your analysis.
“Is this photo Ethical” arguments value is that photographers go to places that are suffering and take photos.One of the reasons could be to raise awareness, the other could be to take the best shot.There was a 15 year old girl that was on the floor dead and some photographers were crouched over her to get the best shot.One photographer got the best International News Image at the Swedish Picture of the Year Award.We want them to go out and take the pictures to tell the real story of the worlds triumphs and tragedies but also want them to disappear.When they do we criticize them for their inhumanity.
I can’t tell what you’re up to here, JR. It sounds as if you’re Summarizing the Summary.
Summary Chose: Ethics of a Three – Parent Baby
Does the summary you chose “make claims and draw reasonable conclusions based on the evidence from the material”?
A: Yes this summary makes claims and draws conclusions based on evidence in the material. For instance, the summary explains “The contribution of healthy mitochondrial DNA to the fertilized egg will prevent birth defects that could result in seizures and decreased muscle formation in the absence of the healthy DNA”. This claim can be backed up by great conclusions if people are starting to be born with a less of a chance of birth defects.
In other words, can you gather the “argument value” of the summary apart from its presenting the factual material?
A: This summary does gather an argument value as well as supporting factual evidence by stating the goods of having a “three parent baby”.
To be clear, it’s your position that the Author of the summary uses the evidence to categorically endorse the experimental procedure?
The article written about the photo taken of a dead Fabienne Cherisma speaks upon the ethics of the photo. Photojournalist, Paul Hansen, received an award for his photo, but at what cost? Hansen received a lot of backlash for his picture taken even though he was just one of 14 people present who were there taking photos. There is value of taking the picture though. Hansen was doing as he was instructed for his job, but he also broke an ethical code. The picture was deemed unsettling, but it was still good enough for the Swedish Picture of the Year Awards. An argument could be made that it would have been better off for Hansen to not taken the image.
It sounds as if you’re trying to “have it both ways,” JetsFan. Is it your position or the Author of the Summary’s position that Hansen “broke an ethical code”? Secondly, do YOU make the argument that Hansen ought not to have taken the photo (even if one of the other dozen would surely have taken its place)?
The summary that I chose was “Is this photo Ethical”. This argument shows is it Ethical for these photographers to take photos of people who suffer. There was a photo and unfortunately it was a 15 year old girl that was on the floor dead and there were photographers that we’re trying to get the picture. I dont think these the photographers are ethical. Its very similar to paparazzi work and they would do anythijng and everything to get a couple of pictures or get the juicy story, without realizing these people have or had lives. Even though good can come with photography and spreading awareness and showing the good side of it, it can also show the bad.
That may all be true, CoolRaccoon, but the question was: “Does the summary you chose “make claims and draw reasonable conclusions based on the evidence from the material”?
After reading and analyzing the summary of “Is this Photo Ethical?”
The claim for this summary is that’s it’s seems counterintuitive that we send photographers into scenes of grave danger, but it’s really important to do that because it will be like more helpful to understand more about what’s going on in this place, for example based on this summary if you open the news and read about the sudden earthquake of January 2010, killed 230,000 Haitians or about 15-year-old Fabienne Cherisma, shot by police while crossing a rooftop with an armload of stolen framed pictures , but you don’t see any pictures you’re not going to be impressive about what’s going on based on what you read also in general always the pictures take our attention first the text and the letters.
Also, these pictures are kind of values to the photographer because he’s photographing an action how is not going to happen every single day in the same place with thing will happened.
In conclusion, this people are doing their job, but at the same time the photographer keeps always his self-outside the issue in the way of don’t let people feel his opinion thru the pictures he took it.
On the other hand, in their job they have too a kind of competition, so everyone wants to make the best he can in picture he took so sometimes they have to take pictures in rare situation because it can be something valuable and make him been awarded.
Despite serious usage errors you do manage to make your points and to communicate them well enough to be persuasive (but only for a first draft). Revisions would have to occur before this work would be right for your Portfolio.
The article and summary about the photo taken of Fabienne Cherisma after she had been shot and killed accurately describes the facts of the events and the author of the summary also draws their own conclusions and opinions based off the facts provided in the original article. You can tell the authors feels strongly about how people seem to ask professionals like the photographers to be professional, but when they do just that they are called vultures and ridiculed for the work they were asked to do.
Agreed.
Ethics of a three person baby summary
Its only reasonable that there would be concerns about the ethics of the three person baby the implications that spawn from such a task alone could be room for very hard discussions with legislators. If something like this became more commonplace it would be need a great amount of regulation and Im confident that the first couple of laws placed if this theoretically would get made they would either to lax providing to much wiggle room for some questionable decisions or to hard making the process so restricted that three’s no point in even using it. Money effects everything especially science theres been multiple instances where rich benefactors use their influence how the research they pay for is used. Theres argument value here, whether its ethical to try to change a living thing that isnt fully formed, who decides what is a defect? the parents the institution? How much will this processes cost and will it price out only the most wealthy allowing them to create “perfect” children just by throwing money at it? All of these are questions that garner a back and forth bewteen the reader and the auhtor.
Most of what you say is clear and true, Anonymous, but you didn’t actually answer the question which was, “Does the summary you chose “make claims and draw reasonable conclusions based on the evidence from the material”? In other words, do you know the Summary author’s point of view? Does she make a strong case?
I read the final summary “Is this Photo Ethical?” and can see the argumentative value of it very clearly. The clandestine, factual nature of the article is over the question of the ethics of said picture, and even though the job of Photojournalism is to do what these photographers did was it right? The argumentative side of this can be that yes, they are in the right to do what they did as it presents the event in a poignant and moving way to show the horror of what was happening in that time in Haiti.
I want you to notice that of your three sentences, the first two are “talked about” sentences that make no claims of their own other than to name some topics. The third sentence comes much closer to stating its clear opinion. Make all your sentences more like the third.
The summary that I choose is, The Ethics of Having a Three Parent Baby. The article does make claims from the source materials however it does not have enough of what could be the consequences of having three parents thought. For example, I know that sometimes people would want to have three parents in order to have their baby have healthier genes in their baby if one of the parents don’t have the genes, they want their child to have. As it mentioned in the article having three parents can prevent seizures or other health problems in children, but this can also be a problem because, we don’t know any problems this could cause yet because the science in this is so new. Plus, if this happens as it stated in the article people of mostly higher income to have healthier babies so that might be a problem that could cause a huge gap
No author is required to give the entire argument in one paragraph, RP, or from a single source. The longer essay from which these paragraphs were excerpted could be faulted for incomplete argument, but this segment either makes good use of the evidence to make its points or it doesn’t. That’s the simpler question. What do you think?
I chose the article ” Is this Photo Ethical” because it shares a point of view of how photojournalists can act inhumanely. A young girl in Hati was shot and she could have been alive if one of the photographers analyzed what they were doing, and called for help. It had reasonable points of view and claims as to what the article was about. The photo of them being around her like vultures was an accurate observation.
Clearly the situation is different if the girl is dead than if she might still have been saved. I don’t see how we can know either way from what we’re told, but it would certainly be blood-curdling to learn that she was alive.
The summary Africa Should Screen American for Measels, made claims and drew reasonable conclusions based on the material. The main idea within this summary is that immigrants have to show proof of immunization records, while Americans have the right to opt out. Supporting this claim, there was evidence to support that immigrants from other countries, such as El Salvador and Guatemala have higher immunization rates than the United States. The “argument value” within this summary claims people are more afraid of “disease carrying” immigrants, but, America has more “anti-vaxxers” who choose not to get medicated.
Said nicely that is, BabyYoda.
I chose the three parent baby summary to review. I found it to be helpful when drawing conclusions about the topic and allowed me to form my own opinion based off of the information provided. I was able to gather information about the process of three parents creating a child, as this was unknown to me prior to reading this summary. I was able to gather information about the risks of the medical procedure and process. After reading the summary multiple times, I was unable to discover an argument by the author. There was no clear argument presented, but there could potentially be one that the author of the summary could find this new genetic development to be unrealistic.
You show courage suggesting that you were “unable to discover an argument by the author,” Sunflower. I see your point. The sarcasm of “As usual, critics worry” and “others fret” is very dismissive of the objections against the procedure. On the other hand, the Author of the Summary does admit they’re probably both right.
-“Is this Photo Ethical”
I would consider this article to be an effective purposeful summary. The entire last paragraph is a claim the the writer is making about how it is almost hypocritical for people to get angry with journalists for doing the thing that we ask them to do. The original article touches on this topic, but the summary goes more into detail and draws a reasonable conclusion based on what the original author is saying.
I think that’s right, MillyCain. The Author of the Summary is clearly disturbed that photojournalists are made to feel guilty for chronicling the horrors of war and disasters.
Is this Photo Ethical?
– This article shows photographers are willing to put their lives on the line for their jobs by going into danger. The fact that they rushed to Haiti just to get a photo of a girl who was shot on the rooftop with stolen famed pictures is just sad. The photo they give us show a pack of photographers surrounding her like a pack of hungry wolf waiting for their next meal, but in this case it them trying to get a good picture for a nice paycheck. It’s like they have no respect for people who are dead.
I agree it is “like” they have no respect for the dead, but removing someone’s kidney and then sewing them back up is “like” disemboweling them unless it’s done by a surgeon.
I chose to read “Is this Photo Ethical” as it shows the two sides of how photographers can truly be. Although they aren’t getting paid to help the people suffering it is a brutal thing to see when a young girl is half dead laying on the ground and dozens of journalists are standing around like “vultures” attempting to get the perfect picture to represent the catastrophe going on in Haiti. It has both solid points of view and claims on whether or not these journalists are in the wrong or simply just doing what they were paid to do.
Hmmmm, . . . so are you saying the Author of the Summary tries to have it both ways: 1) it’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it; 2) the men willing to go in there with their cameras and exploit the “natives” are heartless?
The summary of The Ethics of Having a Three Parent Baby draws reasonable arguments and conclusions from the source material. In the source material the author talks about the ethics and whether or not this technique should be pursued or not. A proponent for the technique is that it will prevent genetic diseases. However, many against say that this technique will open the door for us to play god. The summary of the source article covers both of these topics and opens by giving a brief overview of how the technique is done.
1. Your first sentence promises “arguments and conclusions.”
The summary of The Ethics of Having a Three Parent Baby draws reasonable arguments and conclusions from the source material.
2. Your second sentence mentions ethics but makes no claims and names no claims of the Author.
In the source material the author talks about the ethics and whether or not this technique should be pursued or not.
3. The third sentence names a fact.
A proponent for the technique is that it will prevent genetic diseases.
4. Your fourth sentence names another fact. Neither 3 nor 4 indicates the Author’s point of view,
However, many against say that this technique will open the door for us to play god.
5. Your last sentence again says what the Author talked about but makes no claims and names of claims of the Author.
The summary of the source article covers both of these topics and opens by giving a brief overview of how the technique is done.
The “Is the Photo Ethical?” presents an unfabricated story of what happened to Fabienne. The job that we want photographers to capture is something that will basically fill us in on the truth. The summary does make claims by providing the picture that showed the other photographers were in a “vulture” position that looked like they were going to pounce on the young girl’s dead body. The people are compassionate when they see the other photographers’ photos, but they come across this one and cannot believe that all those people sat there and did nothing to help the girl. The argument value from this piece was if the photographers are there for their own personal gain and to try and win awards for the best pictures or are they there to provide truthful pictures that allow the people to get an understanding of what happened in the chaos without seeing it with their own eyes.
Everything you say is true, BlogUser, but you lose heart at the end and name some “considerations” the Author entertains without declaring yourself what position the Author endorses and whether the Summary is persuasive.
I used the “Is this Photo Ethical” summary. I believe that the summary makes claims and draws reasonable conclusions based on the evidence. The summary gave a picture of photographers taking a picture of a young girl on the ground it was unknown at the time of the photo if she was dead or alive. From this photo, it shows how the photographers were more focused on their jobs than another human’s life. The argument value of this summary was to show how these photographers saw more value in their job and getting the “perfect” shot in their eyes over this 15-year-old’s life. The photographers might have been sad or upset by the girl however, at the end of the day they did a disturbing thing just to get the shoot they wanted.
That’s a completely reasonable analysis of what the Summary Author intended.
It seems counterintuitive that 3 parent’s for one child could ever exist, or be a thing. Faulty genetic’s can support the author’s stance on this topic at hand as it is due to those reasons such thing could happen. In 2016 in the UK the first Three-parent baby was born through 1 father and 2 mother’s as the actual mother’s certain DNA wasn’t healthy enough to create the baby by herself. Thats when the donor steps in to give the baby 1% of the healthy DNA the actual mother couldn’t herself.
Well, yeah, but does the Author of the Summary use the material in the original article well to present a point of view? Is the new author’s “Argument” persuasive and well-supported?
Summary – ‘Ethics of a Three-Parent Baby’
The summary provided does indeed make claims and draw reasonable conclusions based on the evidence presented in the original material. The summary highlights several key points:
1) It asserts that Africans might have more to fear from American visitors in terms of disease transmission, particularly measles, than vice versa.
2) It points out the counterintuitive nature of screening requirements for immigrants to the United States and the permission for some U.S. citizens to opt out of vaccinations.
3) The summary also emphasizes the irony in the fear of disease-carrying immigrants while neglecting the issue of “anti-vaxxer” citizens who choose not to get vaccinated.
These claims and conclusions are based on the evidence provided in the original material, which discusses the contagiousness of measles, immunization policies in the U.S., and the contrasting approaches to disease prevention for immigrants and citizens. Therefore, the summary effectively conveys the argument value of the original material, making claims and drawing conclusions from it.
“Best in Class” here. Read this one if you need a Model. 🙂
Summary – Three Parent Babies
This does summary both make claims and draw reasonable conclusions from the original piece. However , it did feel a little as though the author may of given too much of what everybody else said and take a better shot of getting their ideas in the mix just as well. So yes, I do feel as though you could grab argumentative value from the summary how ever it just won’t have much depth.
Summary – ‘Ethics of Photojournalism in Disaster Zones’
The summary effectively analyzes the ethical complexities of photojournalism in disaster zones, drawing reasonable conclusions based on the evidence presented in the original material. It highlights several key points:
1) The summary acknowledges the contradictory expectations placed on photographers to capture truthful images while also remaining detached from the situation.
2) It discusses the case of photographers rushing to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, aiming to raise awareness and assist in fundraising efforts for disaster relief.
3) The summary critiques the practice of multiple photographers capturing virtually the same shot of a fallen victim, likening them to vultures waiting to feed off her corpse.
4) It delves into the conflicting demands faced by photographers and condemns them for their professionalism in the face of suffering.
Therefore, the summary successfully communicates the argumentative significance of the original material by presenting claims and drawing conclusions from it.
Regarding the summary encapsulating the photographers presumably preying like vultures on the body of the just shot 15-year-old girl, the author certainly draws reasonable claims. The kneejerk reaction is to certainly criticize the photographers given the interpretation by most regarding that photograph. The picture does not necessarily focus on the girl as the other photographers are trying to do, but rather the main sentiment and subject are the photographers photographing the girl. The picture is going to depict the other photographers in a negative light, but the author of this summary eloquently points out the jobs of the photographers. Photographers have to be on the scene at the height of the moment to make ends meet with their job, during the good times, but also the bad times as well. Unfortunately, the photographers can’t do anything about the horrid matter at hand other than do their job. The author does a splendid job of putting perspective on the photograph that the picture itself does not necessarily provide.