For this summary assignment, I started out cutting too much information from the article. I took three sentences to sum up the first paragraph. After I realized I was cutting too much, I went back to add more. I also let the word count hinder my progress. I was worried I would have too many words, which is silly since any work can be edited. I tend to edit my thoughts before they become sentences. This causes problems when I start assignments early. I often can’t get past this mental block unless I feel pressured to meet an upcoming deadline (typically within a few hours). I try to free-write as a means of planning out my writing and starting any thoughts. Sometimes I even sensor myself during free-writing. This block also leads to me putting assignments off. My inability to come up with ideas I find worthy of writing, even for a draft, makes the task seem larger than it really is. To avoid this, I try and break up the assignment into even smaller chunks. However, sometimes I feel this also makes my task seem bigger. It just adds to the number of things I have to do. For example, my list might look like: pick article, read article, find thesis, pick out main points, find support, type. This seems like more work than: find an article, read article, type up summary. Once this starts to happen, I try and switch my mentality to make the assignment easier. One goal I have for the next assignment is to create a schedule and stick to it. I currently track my tasks with a running to-do list. This causes problems when I just move tasks to the next day without thinking about the upcoming deadline. Hopefully setting deadlines for myself will also encourage me to stick with them.
Summary Planning
For this assignment I went through the article and pulled out the main points to make sure I included all the important information from the source. I did a little bit of freewriting to figure out the structure of my paper and to discover how I wanted to word some things. As I included information, I did not find it that difficult to paraphrase. There were a few instances where I found it tricky to find the correct synonym but otherwise I feel I did a good job. This process of summarizing information while avoiding plagiarism will help with future assignments which require a quick summary at the beginning to provide context for the rest of the assignment.