Summary Essay (500 Words)

In the first two weeks of the semester, you have discussed perceptions of the East and West both in your ENGL 101 and HIST 100 classes. As part of that discussion, you have also studied two articles on art, Bohrer's "Inventing Assyria" and Nochlin's "Imaginary Orient." Choose one of the above articles and summarize the contents in 500 words. Look for the main ideas and the thesis of the article. Do not rely merely on headings provided by the author.

Purpose: To review and to demonstrate central skills needed to work with sources in an academic context: understanding the structure of a scholarly argument; identifying its key points; clearly explaining this argument in summary form for a specific audience; selecting and framing appropriate short quotations; using correct style citation format. To enrich your understanding of the process of historical research.

Process: Imagine that you have been given the responsibility for summarizing Bohrer's "Inventing Assyria" or Nochlin's "Imaginary Orient" for the students in another section of HIST 100. These students will be tested on their understanding of this article by their History instructor, but they will be allowed to read only your summary of the article, not the article itself. What must you tell them? They do not need to know every detail in the article, but they must understand its most important points. Write a clear, fair summary of these points. Incorporate a few well-chosen and very short quotations (not whole quoted sentences) to emphasize the articles' key ideas.