How to Succeed on your Essay for Unconditional Admission
to the Graduate Program (Counseling or Education) TROY University - Montgomery

This guide is for TROY University - Montgomery Campus students preparing to write an essay for admission to the College of Education.  Your question will likely ask you to read an article, summarize its main points, and give your response to the article. This assignment calls for a more complex analysis than may appear at first glance. Whether or not you agree with the article, you must present its contents accurately, and you must give a professional response in the context of your own well-focused essay. Here are some "do's" and "don’ts" to help you write your essay. The relevance of some of the "do's" and "don'ts" will vary with the way you respond to the assigned essay.

DO:

  • Include the name of the author and his/her qualifications, title and genre of the text, date and publishing information in a parenthesis or note, a rhetorically accurate verb such as assert, explain, argue, suggest, imply, claim and a that clause containing the major assertion (thesis statement) that unifies the text. 
  • Write an accurate summary or condensation of the major points the author develops in support of the thesis. The summary is normally in chronological order and reflects the major divisions of the author's argument and their relationships to each other.
  • Write the summary from the author's point of view and try to keep the tone of the original without using the author's own words.
  • Be aware of the intended audience and/or the relationship the author establishes with the audience.
  • Be aware of the author's apparent purpose, including any hidden agenda or bias. 
  • In your response to the article, consider such issues as the implications or significance of the text to its field, its purpose and value to its audience, the text's assumptions, any crucial omissions or limitations in the method, the currency of the information, and (as appropriate) the qualifications of the author. 
  • Outline and organize your response into a well-focused critique.

DON’T:

  • Paraphrase the article. (A paraphrase uses your words, matches the source in meaning and content, and is usually longer than the source. A summary uses your words, sums up major points of the argument, and is usually shorter than the source. )
  • Rely on the author’s own words in your summary or otherwise quote the article except in special cases calling for the author’s precise language.
  • Use phrases such as "the author says" or "in the author's opinion" except as needed for your introduction and your own response in the conclusion. Instead, focus your summary on clear presentation of what the author says from his or her own point of view.
  • Use vague verbs such as "talks about," "discusses," or "is concerned with" when specific verbs such as "argues that " will help you focus your essay with precision.
  • Fail to include your own thoughtful response to the article.
  • Forget to proofread your paper carefully.

TROY Montgomery Gene Elrod Success Center (Maury Maryanow) : 2004

 

References

Dunbar, Georgia, Clement Dunbar, and Louise E. Rorabacher. "Quotation, Paraphrase, Summary."  Assignments in Exposition. 12th ed. New York: Longman, 1997. 138-144.

Purdue On-Line Writing Lab. “Differences in Quoting, Paraphrasing and Summary.”   Retrieved February 2004.  <http://owl.english.Purdue.edu/>.

Purdue On-Line Writing Lab. "Editing and Proofreading Strategies for Revision." Retrieved February 2004. http://owl.english.Purdue.edu

Woodworth, Margaret K. “The Rhetorical Précis.” Rhetoric Review 7.1 (1988) : 156-164.