What You Will Learn: In this Touchstone, you will practice your critical reading skills by summarizing and responding to the source you found in Touchstone 1.1. You will deepen your ability to engage with scholarly or credible information, build your analytical thinking, and prepare for future academic writing (including your final paper for this course).
Why It Matters: Learning to carefully summarize and thoughtfully respond to sources is critical for academic and real-world success. Whether you’re supporting a business plan, drafting a research paper, or making personal decisions, being able to accurately understand and critically evaluate information helps you communicate more effectively and make stronger arguments.
What You Will Hand In: A 23-page paper that provides a detailed summary of the source’s argument. You’ll also respond to that argument with your own thoughts based on the source, including examples from the source (quotes or paraphrases of specific lines). See Step 2 for more details.
Keys to Success:
- Develop and submit your own original work.
- Read your source a few times and take notes using the SQ3R strategy you learned.
- Summarize the key arguments of the source.
- Provide your analysis and reflections based on the source.
Helpful Links:
Instructions
Step 1: Read and Process Your Source
Your source should offer clear, trustworthy information that helps you understand your topic more deeply. Using SQ3R helps you stay engaged, remember more, and prepare for future assignments where youll build on your research. To read your source critically and effectively, use the SQ3R method, which stands for:
- Survey: Skim the source to get a general idea of its structure and content. Look at headings, subheadings, visuals, and the introduction and conclusion.
- Question: Turn headings and key points into questions. What do you want to learn? What does the title make you curious about?
- Read: Read the source carefully to find answers to your questions. Take notes as you go.
- Recite: Summarize key points in your own words. Try saying them out loud or jotting them down without looking back.
- Review: Revisit your notes and the source. What were the most important ideas? How do they help you understand your topic?
You should also review the tutorials that introduce how to think about and understand what you read: , , , .
Step 2: Write a Summary and Response of the Article (23 pages)
Your essay should include three parts:
- Summary: What is the authors main point? What question(s) are the author(s) trying to answer, and what are their findings? What is the central argument? What kind of evidence supports their claims? Is there a place where you noted a strong argument or one that could be better developed?
- Analysis: Write a short analysis of the article. Is the argument well-reasoned and supported by evidence? Do you notice any biases or assumptions? What is your response to the ideas in the article? You can agree, disagree, extend, or question ideas in the source.
- Usefulness: Evaluate how well the source would support a student research project. How can this source contribute to a future essay that you might write? Do you have further questions, including ones for future research? How might it come in handy to back up a claim (or address a counterclaim)?
Step 3: Review and Submit
- Review the rubric to confirm that you have met all the requirements of the Touchstone. Once you are happy with it, you can submit it as a Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) file. Your submission must include your name, the name of the course, the date, and the title of your assignment.