Does anyone have any good tips for reading summaries? I'm trying to write my first one, but I'm a little confused as to how.

I know generally what has to be included and that it's supposed to be 2 pages. But around how many words should it be? Also, how formal is it? Am I allowed to use first person? And how do I start? Is there supposed to be some kind of introduction or do I just jump right in?

Thanks.

Are you asking how to do a book report?

Well, they're calling it a reading summary. It's for philosophy. So basically we have to read an argument by Antony Flew, summarize his conclusion and arguing points and then critique the argument.

I've already done the conclusion part and I'm just starting the points now. I think I might have a hard time with the critique once I get there. I'm not sure I understand what I have to do for that part.

Well I'm not so experienced by that, but you when critiquing an argument, you can go for a number of things: varacity of the statements, clarity of the statements (whether the language is appropriate for the audience), broad enough audience appeal, etc.

I don't like dealing things where you HAVE to critique something specific (instead of having different subjects/autors to pick) because it forces you to disagree with the author to have a decent write-up. However, it is good practice to play devil's advocate.. although hard.

Which writing are you supposed to critique? Some existentialist piece? :S

Flew's piece is a critique of the global (teleological) argument for God's existence.

Sounds like GEOG 1hb3.

Is it a precis you are writing?

A reading summary of a scholar article is basically your display, of the comprehension of the material.

Essentially, I started mine by outlining the Article name, listing the author(s) and their arguments with a very brief introduction on their techniques, and methods that they employed to justify their hypothesis.

In the 2nd paragraph, I discussed the types of themes displayed by the techniques that the authors used. For me, these themes were: Coming together, City centers growing independent, and the projection of healthy growth in the future. I went on to link these themes and motifs to the techniques used in order to justify them.

In the conclusion I am re-stating my introduction and parts of my body paragraph.

Edit:

For the critique I believe you are to outline the shortcomings of the authors in terms of communication methods etc. And also the strengths.

I hope this has helped you.

Be well.

I'm guessing this is for the reading summaries you have to do for Philos 1E03. Your TA probably should have went over exactly what he/she wants for the reading summaries. If not, then the specifics probably don't matter too much.

As a general guideline, in any philosophical work, you can (and probably should) talk in the first person (i.e. "In this essay, I will be proving x..."). For the reading summaries, don't bother too much with a formal introduction; just start by introducing the author, the work, and the main argument/thesis. So in this case you might want to state the author's conclusion on whether or not they believe the teleological argument is a sound argument for God's existence (I'm not sure what that might be, as we didn't read Flew last year in 1E03). As for the amount of words, it doesn't matter as long as the whole thing is under (or exactly) two pages.

I hope this helped!

Oh, a few more questions. Do I have to think of a better title than "Reading Summary of Antony Flew’s Critique of the Global Argument from Design, from God: A Critical Inquiry"? And do I need a cover page?

Originally Posted by yoshimay

Oh, a few more questions. Do I have to think of a better title than "Reading Summary of Antony Flew’s Critique of the Global Argument from Design, from God: A Critical Inquiry"? And do I need a cover page?

Your TA would be a much better person to answer this question.

Make sure you inlude what you identified as the thesis!