Summary and Response Essay

The summary part of the summary and response essay will make up your introduction. The introduction should introduce the title of the essay you are responding to and the author of the essay. Don't forget that the title of the essay goes in quotation marks and the title of the book, magazine, or newspaper the work appeared in is either underlined or italicized.

A summary does not offer any new information nor does it offer any opinion, so keep your summary objective. Once you have provided a clear summary, then the rest of the essay can be your response to the ideas presented. Your response needs to be specific in the examples you choose. Don't just say you agreed or disagreed with the author--what exactly did you agree or disagree with?

Here is a sample essay to give you an idea of what you are trying to do. Note that in this example, the first three paragraphs are summary and the last four are the response. The response is personal, yet doesn't use personal pronouns, "I."

Sample Essay

          In the Orange County Register editorial entitled, “Needed: A Policy for Children When Parents Go to Work,” Maxine Phillips argues that we need a national child-care policy.  She explains that day care is currently “inadequately funded and poorly regulated,” so a new system is needed.
          Phillips goes on to note that over 50 percent of mothers are working before their children are a year old.  Because these mothers come from all strata, the child-care issue “cuts across political and class line.” However, current policy and legislation view day care as a service that only the poor need.  As a result, funding will be subject to cuts.  Particularly hard hit are the middle class, who face what Business Week calls, “the day-care crisis of the middle class.” Furthermore, because of negative publicity and imperfect situation, many women are uncomfortable with existing centers, but better quality care is often not affordable.
          To solve the problem, Phillips advocates a family leave law so parents can take time off following the birth of their children, “neighborhood nonprofit day-care facilities open to everyone,” and after-school day care for school age children of working parents.  She also calls for funding for prenatal care, nutrition, health care, and welfare to bolster the family unit.  To secure these benefits, Phillips suggests that parents lobby for them.
          It’s always interesting how much “lip service” the media and politicians give “the family.” Everyone seems to want to tout their high commitment to “family values,” but no one seems willing to “put their money where their mouth is.” Child care costs money.  There is no way of getting around that.  There are also many substandard child care facilities; this too is a sad fact.  Yet day care centers hire non-skilled workers and pay them minimum wage.  Shouldn’t we be a little bit more selective about who we leave our children with?
          Recently a installment of Dateline had a piece that discussed  how critical the first five years of development are for children.  A large percentage of a child's neural connections are made during the early years of development, but a child who does not receive adequate stimulation during this critical state of development will not develop as many connections.  Do we want to rely on some unskilled, minimum-wage worker to help our children develop their intellectual potential?
          Unfortunately there is no easy answer to the problem.  Many conservative groups would insist that a parent (usually the mother) stay home with the children, but this easy answer simply will not work for many parents.  Single mothers do not have this option.  Welfare doesn’t provide enough to adequately support a family.  In addition, many two-parent families cannot afford to live on one income.  The groups who are crying out for mothers to stay home are living in the past.  Gone are the days when families could live off the income the “man of the household” could bring in.
          If this country really believes that children are the valuable asset they are professed to be, then we must be willing to commit the funds to programs that with care for them and nurture them.  If this means “neighborhood day care centers” like those proposed by Phillips, then as tax payers we need to be willing to fund these programs.  If, as politicians like to claim during an election year, children are truly our future, then we all need to start investing in our future.  

Once you have completed the summary and response essay, on a separate piece of paper, you will include a bibliography--in most cases the piece you are working will will be the only entry. However, if you site another source, you will need to include it in your bibliography.

Bibliographic Entry