For next Wednesday, copy a full-page article, such as an editorial (for example, from an on-line newspaper) and then try to reduce the amount of words used, while keeping the essential ideas. The key word here is "essential" (see models below).
Due 20 JUNE 2007
A related question is how a summary is different from an epitome. A summary would have higher levels of generality and would digest with little reference to specifics or style: "You owe a debt to your country." Of course the main point of reduction is lost since in this case the summary might actually be longer than the epitome! But this is just an example.
Now here are two articles. One is on Iraq; the other on Afro-American issues, with two epitomes. These are for your study:
The challenge we face is brilliantly addressed by Mark Helprin of the Claremont Institute in the current issue of the Claremont Review of Books. What he tells us is something we know simply by looking hard at the scene in the Middle East and staring down into the Axis of Evil pool, where the long shadow of China can, however faintly, be discerned.
What Mr. Helprin reminds us is that in fact we are at war against terrorism and that the appropriate mobilization to fight such a war is a whole dreamland away. Since launching the war in Iraq, we have conquered Baghdad and deposed Saddam.
In the 18 months since the war began, we have every day faced many problems. There are more terrorists today than there were a year ago. The mobilization of terrorist enclaves continues. The looming presence in the Middle East isn't the U.S. military; it is an Iran that seems to be engaged in a contest with North Korea as to which nation can more quickly attain nuclear weaponry.
Mr. Helprin begins with a postulate, which is that the United States has the resources to fight back. But to do this requires a huge investment in military and paramilitary enterprises. The good news is that we have the means; the bad news is that sacrifices will be needed, and, above all, the will.
Helprin gives us an economic perspective. The United States produces about $11 trillion worth of goods and services annually. We allocate $400 billion to military spending. That amounts to 3.6 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP (news - web sites)). By contrast, during the peacetime years between 1940 and 2000, we spent 5.7 percent of the GDP on defense. In the war years, we spent 13.3 percent on defense. By the last years of World War II, we were spending, on the military, as much as 38.5 percent of the GDP.
To put the same level of effort into the war on terrorism that we put into World War II, we would need, for military spending, $4.2 trillion. That's 10 times the existing budget.
How to deploy such a force? Mr. Helprin addresses the question of Iran. "The sure way to strip Iran of its nuclear potential would be clear: issuance of an ultimatum stating that we will not allow a terrorist state, the legislature of which chants like a robot for our demise, to possess nuclear weapons."
Mark Helprin, in the current Claremont Review of Books, claims the war in Iraq is being fought badly. In his view, there are more terrorists now than since the war began, and movement among terrorist groups continues. Ironically, the US presence in the Middle East is less obvious than an Iran with nuclear goals.
But Helprin insists we can fight back, with commitment and will.
Helprin views the issue in economic perspective. To reach economic parity with American spending during World War II, we need to spend 4.2 trillion dollars instead of the 400 billion we spend now.
But the cost would be worth it, according to Helprin. It would allow the US military to pressure Iran from fulfilling its nuclear goals.
Cynthia Tucker
(Complete Article)
Across the country, middle-class black Americans are applauding comedian Bill Cosby's insistent campaign to draw attention to the bad habits and poor choices that limit black achievement. There has been little disagreement about his main points -- that drug use, poor classroom performance and the embrace of outlaw culture have done nothing but cement the black underclass at the bottom of American society. An ethic that dismisses serious scholarship as "a white thing" has handicapped middle-class black kids, too.
In early September, Cosby spoke at a Washington forum sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus (news - web sites) Foundation, where he criticized parents who allow their children to be "managed with a cell phone" and who don't keep up with their children's schoolwork. According to published reports, his remarks were warmly received. After the forum, Al Sharpton (news - web sites) credited Cosby with creating a "sea change" by speaking out publicly on a previously taboo topic.
There is plenty of precedent for Cosby's plain-spokenness. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, accomplished blacks routinely policed the behavior of their less-polished brethren, urging thrift, moderation, tidiness. (Much of that conversation, however, went unnoticed by white America.)
It was only during the 1960s, when civil rights legislation was gaining traction, that the black intelligentsia clamped down on any public acknowledgment of black dysfunction. Civil rights leaders believed any admission of black failure would damage the movement. A later generation of "black power" activists denounced any black critic of black failure as a race traitor.
Already, black immigrants are challenging native-born black students for prestigious slots in Ivy League schools. In June, according to The New York Times, several prominent black academics pointed out that about two-thirds of Harvard University's black undergraduates are black immigrants, children of immigrants or children of biracial marriages. Researchers studying black enrollment at several other exclusive schools, including Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania, report that about 41 percent of their black students fit the same demographic profile.
It's no great surprise that immigrants and their children do well. Regardless of national origin, immigrants tend to be resourceful strivers.
But black parents ought to note this, as well: The success of black immigrants strongly suggests that race is no great barrier to achievement. While many black activists contend that there is still a grave disadvantage in being the descendant of slaves, it is hard to see what that could be. Yes, our ancestors suffered. But the 21st-century racist aims his hate at the color of our skin -- not at where we came from or who our grandparents were.
Racism notwithstanding, if a black Antiguan can get high SATs, a black Atlantan should be able to earn them, too.
Epitome reduces a composition by taking away from style but keeping essential content. This will (to some degree) be from the writer's point of view. So the best way is to model the exercise as I did below. I have highlighted in blue and
I have not, however, added coherence strategies, for lack of time. Only in a few cases did I show coherence by adding bracketed words [ ] in the text.
Finally, this is by no means the final draft of an epitome. For example, the examples that Cosby gives could be boiled down or reduced to essence, if one finds the right words.
Here is an example where the ideal is the reverse of what you're usually asked to do, that is, go to lower levels of generality. In epitome, you must learn to go to higher levels of generality. Instead of warning oneself, "Be specific!" one warns oneself, "Be general! Omit, omit, omit! Of course the good writer knows when or what to omit.
A summary, by contrast, reduces not only by style but by content too. It aims for even higher levels of generality than does an epitome.
I will give an epitome of Bill Cosby's Musings. First, by contrast, I include a summary:
"Gerald Boyd questions comedian Bill Cosby's criticism of black subculture values, which Cosby argues leads to one-parent families, substandard education, and poverty. Boyd claims the media has misused these comments instead of taking a closer look at the causes of the problems, such as culture values that encourage pregnancy among young black girls."
Note the higher level of generality involved. An epitome would look like this:
Recently, comedian Bill Cosby accused black families of poor parenting. Typically, the media exposed these comments with little interest in their causes.
Cosby accused black parents of exposing their children to obscene rap music, while spending more money on their children's fashionable clotheswear than for educational aids.
Black mothers were castigated for promiscuous sex, leading to fatherless families. Despite unusual names black mothers give their children, the children end up in jail. Cosby concluded that black people must stop playing the role of victim.
Studies show that single parents raise half of black children, while ten million back Americans live below poverty level. School dropout rate among black children is nearly double that of whites. Black teenagers are also more likely to get pregnant or end up in jail.
But the causes are ignored. Leon Dash, former reporter for The Washington Post, who studied black subculture, concluded that pregnancy was a status symbol among young black girls.
Boyd concludes the media should explore such causes instead of just exposing the problem.
BILL COSBY'S MUSINGS
For weeks, comedian Bill Cosby has been attacking the parenting
failures and personal values of some African-Americans, and it's been
easy to turn his comments into a big story. In fact, it's been too easy.
Instead of using Cosby's assertions as a starting point for a serious
examination of what is really going on in the lives of African-Americans,
and especially the urban poor, news organizations have presented them
with little if any scrutiny. Occasionally, they have brought on
predictable talking heads to debate his charges, but not in a way that
provides real illumination or clarity.
It's the same old song. When it comes to matters involving race or
class, the media often opt for the superficial, rather than expending the
time and resources to determine what really is happening. That's the
case in terms of Cosby's remarks.
The charges, in a number of forums and media outlets, have been
explosive. He has said of black parents: "Lower economic people are not
holding up their end in this deal. They are not parenting. They are
buying things for kids -- $500 sneakers for what? And won't spend $200
for 'Hooked on Phonics.'" And of black women: "Five, six children -- the
same woman -- eight, 10 different husbands or whatever. Pretty soon,
you are going to have DNA cards to tell who you are making love to. You
don't know who this is. It might be your grandmother." And of black
youth, he said: "... with names like Shaniqua, Taliqua and Mohammed
and all of that crap, and all of them are in jail."
Such rantings have made for great sound bites with Cosby fuming
about maladies common to black communities. He puts the onus on
blacks themselves, arguing that they have to stop playing the role of
victim.
Parents are obviously at least partly responsible for the success of
their children -- a point Cosby has hammered home in the media. But
why some are falling down on the job is the real issue here. To suggest
that's it's simply a lack of will is superficial, at best.
News organizations give us Cosby blasting obscenity-laden rap being
played by parents on their car stereos with children seated in the back,
or kids wearing their hats backward and their pants swinging low. But
does any of this really explain why the problems plaguing minorities
continue to exist from one generation to the next?
To say that these issues are complicated hardly begins to describe the
challenge the media face in trying to explain what is really happening.
News organizations encountered a similar test in the 1960s as they
sought to present the story of race in America. But in many ways that
challenge was tame. Race was a story full of heroes and villains, and
blacks wanting and deserving to be treated as equals. Today, the story of
race is one full of paradoxes. On some fronts, there has been clear
progress, yet too many blacks have not just been left behind, but are not
even in the game. Blacks are tired of having to explain their thinking to
whites, and whites are tired of having to listen.
In today's world, according to the Joint Center for Political and
Economic Studies, single parents now raise more than half of black
children. That's one reason why almost 10 million African-Americans
are living below the poverty level with annual incomes of less than
$15,000. Children who complete high school are likely to go to college,
but the percentage of blacks dropping out is nearly double that of whites.
And black teenagers are far more likely to become pregnant than their
white counterparts, or to end up in jail.
Those are the facts, or the headlines. But they say little about the why
-- and more important, [or] what can be done to end such woes.
Once Leon Dash, then a reporter at The Washington Post, spent more
than a year in a D.C. housing project to explore why teenage girls were
becoming pregnant at an alarming rate. What he found was surprising
and revealing.The [that] teenagers regarded motherhood as a badge of honor
rather than the yoke it would become. That's the kind of reporting we
need today.
It's great that such a prominent figure as Cosby would call attention
to some of the critical issues overlooked by a media now dwelling on war,
politics and international strife. If only the media would take his cue and
dig beneath the surface, they would be doing a far better public service
than simply airing some provocative sound bites.
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