English 201

HERE'S A SAMPLE OF AN EXCELLENT SUMMARY:

Student Name

English 201

Summary of “Always Their Own Worst Enemies”

            In the essay, “Always Their Own Worst Enemies”, by Evan Thomas, Martha Brant, Karen Breslau, Arian Campo-Flores, and Suzanne Smalley the general consensus is that “the biggest crisis facing Hillary Clinton…is her own campaign”.  However, this essay shows that Hillary is a strong, resilient and passionate woman despite the many oversights of her campaign.  She is prepared to fine-tune the difficulties and stay attentive and focused on the next step forward.  When faced with an obstacle in her campaign, whether it is winning at the polls in Ohio and Texas, taking bad advice from her husband and advisers, or going on “Saturday Night Live” and “The Daily Show”, Hillary Clinton manages to maintain her composure and resilience throughout it all. 

            This essay exposes Clinton’s campaign to be unorganized, misleading and often confusing.  It’s accused of mixing messages and shifting its weight as a strategy to confuse voters.  An advertisement known as the “red phone” asks who the public would trust in a time of national crisis.  The ad naturally pinpoints Clinton as the most experienced, but in reality, the voters don’t have the ability to know who will be better if a situation ever does arise.   However confusing the tactic, it did help her win over Ohio and Texas in order to come back against Obama. 

            The essay bluntly states that Obama’s campaign out-manages Clinton’s.  Her two primary campaign staff were rumored to have lashed out at one another in disagreement on more than one occasion and eventually it came down to them being unable to resolve their differences.  With this kind of inconsistency it’s no wonder the Clinton campaign is so unorganized.  Clinton’s husband’s role in the campaign adds to the confusion.    Already, during campaigning, former president Clinton is interfering and it doesn’t seem to be going over well.  In one instance, Bill suggested to Hillary that she should gear her campaign towards negative messaging about Obama.  It worked temporarily and then backfired in Iowa and South Carolina.  Yet despite these pitfalls, Hillary Clinton was determined, insisting, “We can win this. I know we can win this.”

            Clinton is consistently resilient and passionate no matter what is thrown her direction.  As her campaign attempts to move away from the negative and move towards familiarizing the people with her, she preserves that same resilience and passion.  Her passion, a good friend of Clinton’s recalls, is one of her strengths.  She is determined and focused on what’s ahead of her and she has proven that even with the mistakes and difficulties of her campaign she is unrelenting.

            At first glance I assumed that the essay was a negative position on Clinton’s entire campaign, which would include Hillary as well.  After taking a closer look, I realized that the negativity was directed solely at Clinton’s campaign and not directed towards her at all.  In fact, it was quite the opposite with her.  For every negative aspect of the campaign that was pointed out, a positive aspect about Hillary herself was paired alongside.  The essay mounts the majority of the blame on her advisers and her husband which makes her appear as a victim of her own campaign.  I thought that the essay was very well written and it was structured in such a way that it was hard not to side with Hillary. 

WORKS CITED

Thomas, Evan, Brent, Martha, Breslau, Karen, Campo-flores, Arian, and Suzanne Smalley.  "Always Their      Own Worst Enemies." Newsweek 15: 11 (3/17/2008): 41-43. Print.

HERE'S A SAMPLE OF A WEAK SUMMARY, WITH COMMENTS IN RED BY ME.

Student Name

English 201

Lacks a title indicating this is a summary

 Hillary Clinton is often viewed as a political powerhouse, which may also be her downfall, but she remains resilient in her fight for presidency. Needs to identify author and title, so the audience realizes this is a summary of someone else’s ideas, not the student author’s own ideas. Clinton has been very persistent in her fight for the Democratic Presidential Nomination. No matter what stands in her way, she always seems to prove that she is in this fight to win it, even through all of the hurdles she has encountered as both first lady and nominee. She has shown the public that she is relentless, which has made some people very critical that she is too determined, even comparing her to Freddy Krueger in the sense that no matter what you do to her, she keeps going.  Her campaign on the other hand, is not as well organized. These previous two sentences are a good paraphrase of the thesis. Her former campaign manager is quite as admirable, as he is seen as the "clumsy geek" in school. This last sentence gets the paragraph off track.

This needs a stronger connecting transition to the last paragraph. Her senate office, on the other hand, appears to be run very well, with a friendly competitiveness among staff members. She can be humorous in the office, and yet has proven to be calm even during tough times like on September 11th. On that fateful day, she was reassuring her staff as they were being rushed out of the Russell Senate Office building. Keeping your composure during such an event is a very important quality to have as President. Most of this paragraph focuses on an example in the original essay, and so loses the overall idea.   It also leaves out significant points that the strong summary sample covers.

 Even throughout all the trouble in her past, through the whole Monica Lewinsky scandal, she has held on as a presidential front runner. Bill Clinton also has received grief from supporting and campaigning for his wife. He continues to campaign for Hillary, and they are battling this out together. This previous sentence provides an idea that is not present in the original essay.  She may be seen as a "tough-minded" candidate, but she is also seen as incredibly resilient.”Incredibly resilient” are copied words from the original, so they need quotation marks.  No matter what you think of her, there is no denying that she is a strong woman who can create a passionate image as well as that of a powerful leader.

This sample lacks an ending paragraph of personal opinion and a Works Cited.