The Objectives of Essay One: The following summary-and-response essay requires you 1) to summarize the assigned clip from YouTube by using your critical reading and thinking, and then 2) to compose your thoughtful response to one or two main issues of it. Your sophisticated responses should be based on your experience, knowledge, and understanding as an independent college student–this is it!
Note: Do not refer to any unnecessary secondary sources, such as Google, Chat-GPT, and whatsoever, and stay focused on this assigned primary work only. Watching it several times should be the best way, while taking notes, to complete this simple and easy first essay.
Your writing in college often begins with carefully decoding and understanding the assigned readings, thinking about it on and off, and responding to the main ideas of the readings objectively before you are asked to add your own opinion to the mix. In fact, when you write your opinion in academic writing, it will always be in the context of what others in academia think and say about the topic. In this way, summary writing is an essential skill for you to practice and learn.
Four important points about efficient summary writing include:
1. To acknowledge the original author: refers to the author and title of work formally and presents the author’s ideas neutrally or objectively without comment or opinion.
2. To contain only the most important information: the main point the author is making about the topic (thesis), main ideas that support or explain the thesis a few supporting details
3. To be much shorter than the original: one-sentence summary explains only the author’s thesis and a fuller summary explains the thesis and main supporting points
4. To paraphrase any information taken from the text; only one quote is allowed for the assignment! Your summary should include the author’s name, the work’s title and a few main ideas of it. Besides that, neutrality, brevity, and Independence matter to produce a solid summary.
Please carefully watch the following clip to complete the first essay, a two-full-page summary and response essay in two solid paragraphs. .
“What really matters at the end of Life” by BJ Miller
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apbSsILLh28Links to an external site.
Your 1st paragraph should summarize the entire clip concisely and effectively by including 1) the key purpose of his speech, 2) two faces of suffering, 3) a story of Frank and his decision, 4) a shift in perspective about death, 5) the most enlightening and stolen momentum of his life or transcendence, 6) what’s most important to the people who are closer to death, and 7) what makes us feel human, connected.
Your 2nd paragraph should begin with introducing two of the most imperative quotes from the clip, which should be carefully elaborated on with your words–why did you select the quote and how does it reflect the main idea of the entire clip? The time stamp of each quote is required by following the MLA format, please. Then, please write out your insightful and independent response to the main idea of the clip–please identity the main idea of the entire clip, first–by sharing “your decisive reason to wake up!”
Note, please: Your complete essay should be two full pages with two solid paragraphs and your essay must be submitted to this folder in CANVAS by the due date–the Works Cited page is additionally required to list the assigned primary source only by following the MLA format. The introduction and conclusion are unnecessary, and please do not list any other secondary works on the Works Cited page–Please watch the assigned clip several times without referring to any floating web sources or referring to one of those AI tools.
Again, the primary objective of this assignment is to provide you an opportunity to revitalize a few essential elements of critical reading, thinking, and writing skills that you should have acquired from English 161; whether you took it last semester or five years ago. Please decode the assigned writing prompt correctly, watch it several times, and then carefully compose a solid summary-and-response essay by its due–Do not submit any incomplete or insufficient essay. For the MLA format, please refer to your English 161 text and/or the listed MLA-related resources, including The OWL at the Home of English 162, CANVAS.
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/index.htmlLinks to an external site.