How to Write a Summary, Analysis and Response Essay Paper with Examples

Writing a Summary, Analysis and Response to an essay is the first step in being able to use your research to create your own original article. You can use this technique as you take notes during research or as the outline for an essay requiring you to summarize, analyze and respond to a piece of writing.

How to Write a Summary: What is this? What does Author say about it?

In a summary, you want to identify the main idea of the article and put this information in your own words. Prepare to write a summary by underlining and writing notes as you read. The summary should include the thesis and topic sentences of the article put into your own words. One easy way to do this is to underline the topic sentence of each paragraph and then to write that sentence in your own words on the side of the page or on another piece of paper. Afterwards, you can read all those sentences together and then re-write them into complete sentences with good transition words. You may find you need to leave out some of the unimportant details too. Your summary should be as short and concise as possible.

1. Start with an author tag which includes first and last name of the author and the title of the text (In “My Favorite Shoe” by John Jones explains... or John Jones in his article “My Favorite Shoe” explains....

2. What is this essay about? (thesis)

3. You may need to identify the issue that the article is addressing.

4. What are the claim and sub claims in the article? In other words, what is the main point the writer is trying to make and what are the supporting ideas they use to prove their point?

5. What does the author say about this claim? What is their evidence to try to prove their point?

Sample paragraph form (just an example, your paragraph doesn't’t have to follow this form)

Xxxxx is the issue addressed in “xxxxx” by XXXXX. The thesis of this essay is XXXX. The author’s main claim is XXXXX and his/her subclaim is xxxxxx. The author says xxxxxx. His/her conclusion is xxxx.

How to Write an Analysis: Analyze TRACE (Text, reader, author, constraints/context (history of argument) , exigence (how argument fits into this moment in time).

The analysis is the most difficult part to write because it requires you to think about how the essay is written and also how it is argued. You will want to consider what is effective and ineffective. You will analyze what works and what doesn't work to prove the author's point and persuade the audience to agree with them.

Generally, your analysis is the body of your essay and so it will be the longest part. You will want to consider at least three of the TRACE elements. To make it easier, I've included the last two (contraints and exigence) as part of author and reader. You can do these in any order, but generally, you will do Text first. You can do either Reader, or Author second; however, your emphasis should be on what is effective/ineffective for the audience.

Break your analysis into paragraphs. Each one of these aspects will form the basis for at least one paragraph of the body of your paper. You will use examples from the paper and your own arguments about these examples to prove your point.

An Analysis:

Text

• Describes the organization of the essay
• Tells the claim and sub-claims
• Explains the support
• Analyzes the type, quantity, quality and relevance of the support

Author

• Explains how the author shows they are an authority
• Tells how the author makes their writing interesting and effective for this audience
• Talks about how the author tries to relate to the audience and establish common ground
• Context: how does the author fit their argument into the history of thought about this issue (Constraints)

Reader

· Who is the reader?

· How would they react to these arguments?

· How is this essay effective or ineffective for this reader?

· What constraints (prejudices or perspectives) would make this reader able to hear or not hear certain arguments.

· What is the exigence (events in this moment in time) which make the audience interested in this issue?

Sample essay form (just to give you an idea of how to write)

The essay opens with XXXXX and makes the claim XXXX in paragraph XXX that XXXXX. The rest of essay is organized by XXXX (very brief description of outline of essay perhaps telling where description of problem is, where claims are and where support is located—which paragraphs).

The author establishes his/her authority by XXXX. The author assumes an audience who XXXXX. He/She establishes common ground with the audience by XXXX.

Readers are interested in this issue because of the exigence of XXXXX. Constraints on the reader's reaction are XXXXXX. I think The reader would react to this argument by XXXXX. I think that the author's XXXX is effective. XXXX is less effective because XXXXX. includes XXXX The support is adequate/ inadequate and is relevant/ irrelevant to the author’s claim.

How to Write a Response

Generally, your response will be the end of your essay, but you may include your response throughout the paper as you select what to summarize and analyze. Your response will also be evident to the reader by the tone that you use and the words you select to talk about the article and writer. However, your response in the conclusion will be more direct and specific. It will use the information you have already provided in your summary and analysis to draw a conclusion about how you feel about this article. Most of the time, your response will fall into one of the following categories:

• You will agree with the author and back your agreement up with logic or personal experience.
• You will disagree with the author because of your experience or knowledge (although you may have sympathy with the author's position).
• You will agree with part of the author's points and disagree with other points .
• You will agree or disagree with the author but feel that there is a more important or different point which needs to be discussed in addition to what is in the article.
• How will this article fit into your own paper? How will you be able to use it?

Here are some questions you can ask to help you think about your response: 

1. What is your personal reaction to the essay?

2. What common ground do you have with the author? How are your experiences the same or different from the authors and how has your experience influenced your view?

3. What in the essay is new to you? What information do you know which is not contained in the article but is relevant to the topic? What in this essay made you re-think your own view?

4. What does this essay make you think about? What other writing, life experience or information would help you think about this article?

5. What do you like or dislike about the essay and/or the ideas in the essay? How much of this is related to your personal experiences? How much is related to your own worldview? How is this feeling related to information you know?

6. How will this information be useful for you in writing your Exploratory essay? What position does this essay support? Or where might you use this article in your essay?

Sample essay form:

Before reading this article, my understanding of this topic was XXXXX. I have XXXX as common ground with the author/ audience. My reaction to this essay is XXXXXX. What was new to me is XXXXX. This essay makes me think XXXX. I like/ dislike XXXXX in the essay. I will use this article in my exploratory essay for XXXXX.