The form of your writing is to be what is called a pr©cis (an accurate but shortened version of an original work). You are not to write essays. An essay is your take – on the material. A précis is your understanding of the author s take – on the material. You are to tell me what you believe that I told you, but DO NOT quote me and DO NOT use simple rearrangements of my words (because neither exposes whether you understand the material). Your job is to write a carefully considered and efficient summary of the principal message(s) that I have presented in each one of the assigned chapters. What you write must faithfully reflect what I wrote and must not be distorted by any of your own attitudes or opinions.
On the line immediately above each chapter summary, insert a heading that indicates the chapter that the summary will cover. Summarize the chapters in ascending order.
Be certain to follow ALL paper requirements
5. For most chapters, you will need about 50 lines (and maybe even a few more) to come close to doing justice to the contents. 50 lines are comparable to approximately two and a quarter pages (on standard paper). There will be a grade penalty if you go substantially over 50 lines (5% for more than 70 lines, 10% for more than 80 lines, and I will stop reading at 90 lines).
6. I expect detailed and comprehensive chapter content coverage. Assume that the reader of your paper is your boss, that he has no intention of reading my chapter, and that he has asked you to fill him in on the chapter contents. Your job depends upon the quality of your summary! Likely boss responses are Advancement, Bonus, Continuation, Demotion, or Fired.
7. Do NOT begin your paper with an overview, and do NOT end it with a summary. Those are for essays, and you are not writing essays. Also, there is absolutely no value in simply mentioning topics that I discussed. I want your interpretation of what it is that I wrote about the key topics in the chapters. So, jump right in and use every bit of your paper to write your own highly-condensed (but not devoid of detail) version of that topic content.
8. For full credit your papers covering Chapters 6 through 15 must explicitly integrate the graphical analysis. You are welcome to copy diagrams from my chapters and paste them onto pages attached at the end of the body of your summary. To capture material from a PDF document, use the SNAPSHOT-tool. In older versions of Adobe Reader, it is on the toolbar and looks like a camera. (If it is not there, select Tools, click on Customize Toolbars, scroll down to the bottom of the list, find Snapshot Tool, click on its check box, and then click on OK.) In the most recent version of Adobe Reader (Adobe Reader X), you will find the SNAPSHOT-tool on the Edit menu. (Click on Edit on the menu bar and then click on Take a Snapshot ). To copy something, left click on the snapshot tool or on Take a Snapshot, depending upon your version of
Adobe Reader. Then place the cursor just to the left and above the material that you want to copy. Depress the left mouse button and hold it down as you drag the cursor from the upper left-hand corner to the lower right-hand corner of the material that you are copying. You will see a box forming around the material. When you let up on the left cursor button, the material will be copied to the Windows Clipboard. From there, you can insert it onto a page in your paper. Note: diagrams without explanations give me no assurance that you understand them; so, you must explain them. Explanations in captions to diagrams do not count toward the 50 line limit.
9. USE PRIMARILY YOUR OWN WORDS: If you cannot explain something in your own words, then you do not really understand it. It is NOT OK to compose your papers by simply (and probably mindlessly) rearranging the same words as in my sentences! DO NOT just use sentences taken from the textbook in which you have replaced every fifth word by a synonym. More often than not, such paraphrasing yields nonsensical results. If you do these sorts of things, I will assign a very low distinctiveness – factor (as low as 0.2 if you have written only every fifth word!), and you will receive a very low grade. (See explanation of the distinctiveness factor
10. NO QUOTATIONS: Any sentence or phrase that contains five or more words in the same sequence as in the text or any other source constitutes a quotation. Because quotations provide no clue as to what they mean to you, your papers are to contain no quotations. This includes definitions; they too must be rewritten in your own words. I will discount your score substantially (using the distinctiveness factor if you include quotations enclosed in quotation marks or commit plagiarism by failing to use quotation marks.
11. GRAMMAR PROBLEM DEDUCTIONS: Care enough about the quality of your work to proofread and correct it. Remember, I do expect you to use the grammar and style checker to find and correct problems. I also expect that you will back this up with a careful proof reading and rewrite (if necessary) of your papers. I will mark syntax, spelling, and other grammatical errors that I notice. No college-level paper should have more than a few; so, I will award a low ―grammatical quality score if there are very many. (See WRITING STANDARDS.)
12. Some people write to impress, using complex sentences filled with exotic terminology. Do not do that in this class. Write to communicate efficiently and effectively. Except for economics terminology use middle-school level vocabulary, write simple sentences that require little punctuation, and use your best formal writing style.
13. Do not use the expression vice versa – in your assignments. Its meaning is usually ambiguous. See the Writing Guide for an example.
WRITE 7 Pages total 2 and half page about each chapter (about 50 lines). Write the number of the chapter before you start writing about it.
