Express the author or authors’ central thesis, claim, or conclusion. This should be expressed as concisely, clearly, and fully as you can. What is the author arguing for?
Note that with some of the earlier readings, in which we will be dealing with various philosophers’ ethical theories, it may be difficult to isolate one key claim. Do your best here to describe their overall theory in as concise a fashion as you can.
Articulate, to the best of your ability, any argument or arguments that the author presents in defence of their thesis.
Try to distil their argument into its simplest form.
What premises does their argument require?
Are there any hidden premises that the author assumes but does not explicitly state?
What evidence and reasons do they present in defence of their claims?
Provide citations and references from the texts to show where you are getting your information from—show me why you think an author is saying what you think they are.
Note: When there are two assigned readings for the week:
Choose one reading to focus your summary on.
Read the other assigned reading as well so that we can discuss it in class.
Does it defend the same thesis, or an opposing one?
Does its argument directly relate to the one you summarised?
What not to do:
Don’t use or submit A.I.-generated content.
Do not rely on other people’s summaries (CliffNotes, SparkNotes, Wikipedia, YouTube videos . . .) to write these summaries. Read the assigned texts! As someone who has studied these texts for years, it is usually painfully obvious to me when a student has not actually read the text they are discussing. I will provide supplementary readings, summaries, and videos as we progress throughout the semester.
Do not summarise the text page for page: your goal is to isolate the author’s thesis and argument, not to write a book report. You should read the text and then, only once you’ve got a sense of the entire text, try to capture its key parts.
Responses that meet the word requirement, isolate a central thesis, and clearly present an argument will receive full credit, i.e. 3 points. Note that you can incorrectly interpret the author’s thesis or argument, and still receive full credit, so long as it is clear to me that you have made a concerted effort to read the text
