17. Digging Deeper

Data I plan on analyzing, besides what I have already, will be conducted with another subject and possibly another subject after them also.  I feel that for my first subject, although I got all the information I needed, I only had 6 questions and therefore in my opinion to get the length for the paper I need at least 2 more subjects and their explanations of my questions:

1.  Do you know what a summary is?
2.  Could you define a summary?
3.  How often would you say that you’ve used summaries in your major?

4.  Do you understand what a professor is expecting from you when they ask you for a summary?

5.  Are you aware that there are different types of summaries?

And from then on I would go on to ask if the subjects understand what a professor wants from them when asking for a summary.  From that and their responses I would try to dig deeper into why they think this way and why it is projected this way. 

16. (Re)Writing

What I hope to discover with this project is how people from multiple majors identify the boundaries of summaries and how they go about writing summaries.  As noted in my short analysis, there is a difference between interpretation summaries and plot summaries and what the professors expect from you when you write them.  So what I plan on doing to is focusing more on why the population of students believe that when referencing a summary it is to talk about what the piece was mostly about.  Also, as to why students need clarification on what the professor is asking for in terms of interpretation.

15. Short Analysis Project

The Summary Exposed

            While giving an interview, one should always try and stay calm, or at least appear as if they are calm.  While S, the interviewer, knew C, the subject, very well it starts off as what seems to be a regular conversation and then S immediately jumps into the questioning, which didn’t exactly give off the calm vibe, but they just kept going with it but with her jumping right in it shows that S wants to immediately start the interview.  C is not reluctant to answer anything and answers the questions completely and to the best of her knowledge. 

            The interview questions are based off of the knowledge of summaries and if one understands the difference between the different types of summaries when asked to present one to a professor or audience.  As S asks C to give her interpretation of what a summary is:

S:   So do you know what a summary is?

C:  Yes.

S:  Could you define a summary?

C:  A summary is a snapshot of an entire plot where you don’t need to exactly read every  

     word but the summary gives you the descriptive details that you do need, they    

     basically give you the gist of the story, like the character, the plot, maybe the conflict

     where they may at least attempt to give you the conflict in some type of way but not

     unreal the whole entire thing for you but a summary is just usually maybe a couple of

     sentences just to maybe give you an idea of the topic, or a story, or a subject or

     anything like that.

            S had asked C to be her subject because C is a Communications major, which besides English majors they do a lot of writing and write a lot of papers. 

S:  How often would you say that you’ve used summaries in your major?

C:  For Comm, um, I think a lot, a lot of the times with your research projects and when

      I’m trying to gather sources for a paper I’ll ya know read the paper and try to give the

      summary of the source that I’m using so I won’t have to read the whole paper.  When   

      I’m ready to use the source I can write down maybe a couple sentences about the

      summary that I read and it will help me narrow it down with the sources that I need to

      use

            Clearly C is aware of what a summary is and her explanation of what a summary is isn’t wrong.  As S increasingly asks questions to get more in depth about the subject, C becomes a little confused as to why she is being asked these questions, but she is not uncomfortable in any way.  While S explains that there are different types of summaries and that the one C described the process of is a plot summary.  But S then goes on to explain that when a professor asks you for a summary, a lot of times it is for an interpretation summary, which is what you took from the story itself.  C was not so surprised when S had explained it to her but she felt that she needed to explain her experience with summaries and why she automatically would have thought to submit a plot summary and not an interpretation summary, or think to even ask the professor what they would specifically want in the summary.

            C explains that since kindergarten we are basically taught and have had it embedded in our minds to make sure that we understand that a summary is an explanation of what the piece of writing was about and although she clearly understood when S was explaining that that isn’t the only form of a summary, we automatically think to go to the plot summary.  Any normal person would think to go about with describing the plot, because that is what our culture is made to believe that we are suppose to follow instead of asking exactly what the professor would want. 

            Another thing that our culture is made to believe is that summaries are supposed to be short and sweet without giving away too much.  Many believe that the summaries should only be no more than two paragraphs, when in all actuality they should be answered completely and can be as long as you desire them to be.  We have been taught wrong as a culture and because of this a lot of college students, including English majors, are not aware of the different types of summaries that can be represented. 

            As C comes back to the interview and realizes what S has presented to her it is easy to see that she understands what was presented to her, but feels that she has been unaware of how to do assignments correctly.  C knows that both are important to know, but the expression she has almost questions how many assignments for English and Communications she had done wrong during her college career.         

S then asks C what she believes would be more important, to know a interpretation summary or a plot summary?  C answers with interpretation.     

S:  Why do you say that?

C:  Because I mean, anybody could write verbatim, ya know, of a summary like finding a  

      new way to rewrite a story without writing it the same exact way but interpretative

      makes it so much more about you and how you look at it and how you angle it so it

      makes you think more and think about it on your own versus kind of rewording what

      they have already written as a basic summary format.

S:  Yeah, would you say it’s important to know and learn the basic concepts of a

     summary? 

C:  Um yeah I think it would help to have it not retaught to us but maybe mentioned to us    

    again while we are in college because ya know some stuff you don’t always remember   

    from college so to have a refresher I think that’s a good idea.     

The main point for S’s interview was so that it was known that interpretations need to seen as an effective summary.  S got her point across to C, and C agreed that there should be a refresher course and maybe even a course where developing interpretations is the main focus.  With a successful interview and showing calmness and professionalism, S had allowed for C to take control of the interview but while still holding the reins.   With the short transcript being of only 931 words, S had only displayed 239 words, allowing the majority of the conversation to be done by C with 652 words. 

C did not overstate anything really essential, such a phrase like “I did this…” or “It was hard…”.  It wasn’t like that in the conversation with S, but once S had made sure C was done and if she had anything else to contribute about her experiences with summaries in any way, whether they were positive for grades or negative, and she felt she expressed everything to as best her knowledge as possible. 

Experiences with summaries are not just part of the English curriculum and the reasons behind why S asked C to be her subject is because of the differences between the English and Communications majors.  Many majors require major writing and details in their writing and learning about others experiences with it is why the subject was chosen outside of the English major.  

14. Focusing on the Short Analysis Project

What I focused on in my short analysis project the most was if the subject understood what a summary was and what was expected from a summary.  The subject explains everything she knows and understands then allows the interviewer to go on explaining the differences between the two types of summaries and that the plot summary is embedded into our minds for us to automatically do and it should be common sense to know how to do that exactly.  Another thing that was focused on was that we were taught wrong a culture that a summary is to be very short and can be only 2 paragraphs.  Because of that it now makes me wonder, exactly how many times have we probably done a summary wrong or not to the best of our abilities?

13. Analyze the Story

In this section of my transcript, my subject and I are discussing summaries and what professors are expecting out of them...

S:  Yeah… so do you understand what a professor is expecting from you when they ask you for a summary?

C:  Uh, yes, I mean I feel like we have learned that so young and it has been embedded in our minds since we were in preschool and just the basic so I feel like now in college it’s almost second nature to ya know to pick a summary, to outline a summary or to do a summary.

And as we continue on I explain to her that a there are different types of summaries, interpretation style for one, and although she understood what interpretation meant she did not think of it as a summary.  I think this section stood out the most to me because she is right about explaining how we all feel like a summary is common knowledge and should be "embedded into our minds" so that we are aware of how to do one and how a professor will want us to be able to give them what they want.  And if you don't know what you're doing, you feel inadequate to do good in a course instead of asking a professor what it is they would like for you to do.  It is important, not just for college students, but for everyone if you are unsure if you are doing something correctly you really should ask for help.  Just because things should be like second nature to us, doesn't mean you shouldn't ask the professor if what they want could possibly be a plot summary or a interpretation summary.  

12. Transcript

S:  Okay so if you could just sign these papers right here

C:  Okay.

S:  This is basically just going over that you are my subject and that you’re agreeing to participate in this study and if you don’t agree with anything you can tell me to stop at any time.

C:  Okay.

S:   So do you know what a summary is?

C:  Yes.

S:  Could you define a summary?

C:  A summary is a snapshot of an entire plot where you don’t need to exactly read every word but the summary gives you the descriptive details that you do need, they basically give you the gist of the story, like the character, the plot, maybe the conflict where they may at least attempt to give you the conflict in some type of way but not unreal the whole entire thing for you but a summary is just usually maybe a couple of sentences just to maybe give you an idea of the topic, or a story, or a subject or anything like that.

S:  So clearly you understand what a summary is used for.

C:  Yes.

S:  How often would you say that you’ve used summaries in your major?

C:  For Comm, um, I think a lot, a lot of the times with your research projects and when I’m trying to gather sources for a paper I’ll ya know read the paper and try to give the summary of the source that I’m using so I won’t have to read the whole paper.  When I’m ready to use the source I can write down maybe a couple sentences about the summary that I read and it will help me narrow it down with the sources that I need to use

S:  Yeah… so do you understand what a professor is expecting from you when they ask you for a summary?

C:  Uh, yes, I mean I feel like we have learned that so young and it has been embedded in our minds since we were in preschool and just the basic so I feel like now in college it’s almost second nature to ya know to pick a summary, to outline a summary or to do a summary.

S:  Are you aware that there are different types of summaries?

C:  Um, no. I guess not?

S:  Well, you obviously know from explaining earlier what a summary is, you would say that’s a plot summary, right?

C:  Yeah.

S:  Well, there’s summaries where the professor, if a professor came to you and said “I want you to give me a summary”,  what would you assume that they would want you to do? 

C:  Um, kind of how I described before.

S:  So as a plot summary?

C:  It depends on what class I’m in.  So, if it’s a Comm or English class I’m assuming you mean a plot summary. 

S:  A lot of professors actually want you to give your interpretation of what,

C:  Of what you read in the summary?

S:  Yeah

C:  I could see that

S:  What you read in the work, they want your interpretation of it so if you were say describing… If you had to do a summary for Romeo and Juliet, how would you say?  How would you say a summary for that would be?

C:  I mean for that one, since um, it is Shakespearean, sometimes it is more difficult to understand or decode depending on how knowledgeable you are in Shakespearean literature.  I do feel that in that sense you would probably do more um of a type of summary you described, versus a plot summary I feel ike you would do more of an interpretation because I mean some of the characteristics will always be the same with each of the papers the professor reads from a student but I do feel like it would vary a little bit because the interpretation of what you read is more complex than a regular piece of literature.

S:  Can you name a specific example of where you have done an interpretation summary?

C:  Um… That’s a good question… Um… The class I took last semester, it was an English class. Um, I can’t remember the name of it off the top of my head but it was where we would read a lot of poems in that class and that was a good example of us giving our interpretation summary because basically we presented it, what we thought the poem was about, he was able to tell us off of our interpretation of what we wrote for the summary, were we close to what it was trying to say or were we not so, that’s a good example of one.

S:  Were your interpretations correct?

C:  Actually, yeah, they were pretty spot on, yeah!

S:  Do you think it’s more important to know an interpretation summary or a plot summary?

C:  Uh, probably interpretation.

S:  Why do you say that?

C:  Because I mean, anybody could write verbatim, ya know, of a summary like finding a new way to rewrite a story without writing it the same exact way but interpretative makes it so much more about you and how you look at it and how you angle it so it makes you think more and think about it on your own versus kind of rewording what they have already written as a basic summary format.

S:  Yeah, would you say it’s important to know and learn the basic concepts of a summary? 

C:  Um yeah I think it would help to have it not retaught to us but maybe mentioned to us again while we are in college because ya know some stuff you don’t always remember from college so to have a refresher I think that’s a good idea.             

11. Interview Protocal

I am going to keep the questions I had posted for blog 9, but when starting I will ask for my subject to state their major.  Question 1 will be  "How would you define a summary?  Do you understand what it is used for?" and once the questions are answered I will go into "So tell me about a time when you had to write a summary". Question 2 is "Are you aware of the other types of summary's?" and from there my other questions are

3.  For your major, how often would you say you use summary's?

4.  Do you understand what a professor is actually expecting from you when you are asked to present them with a summary?

5.  Do you feel it is an important thing to know how to proceed with a summary?

Between these questions I will ask more of the ones that give a more in depth answer to the questions but for now this is what I have.  I am having trouble thinking of other questions so any possible feedback would be appreciated.