Writing a Summary By: D. McManaman

Writing a SummaryBy: D. McManaman The literacy test will require you to write a short summary. But if you have learned how to write a basic 5 and 8 sentence paragraph, then this will be a piece of cake.

Consider the following point: You may be required to summarize an article in less than 100 words. How would we do that? Easy. A good 5 sentence paragraph is about 60-70 words. A good 8 sentence paragraph is around 100 words. So, you simply write a paragraph on what you read. Let’s begin with the 5 sentence paragraph. To do that, keep in mind the basic structure:

opening sentence supporting detail supporting detail supporting detail closing sentence

1. For an opening sentence, tell us what the article is about. 2. Your job after that is to pick out three supporting details from the article. Make sure that they are three important points. 3. Then write your concluding sentence.

Let’s say you are required to write a summary of 100-130 words. Easy. Simply plan for a complete 8 sentence paragraph. All you do is add a sentence that elaborates on each supporting detail. Let’s call it a “back up” sentence. back up sentence (elaborates on the supporting detail) back up sentence (elaborates on the supporting detail) back up sentence (elaborates on the supporting detail)

Let’s say you are required to write a summary of about 300 words. All you do is plan for a three paragraph summary. Begin with your visual structure: Next Slide

Here is your plan! First, you must decide what each paragraph is going to focus on. Let’s read the following article on Pot and Porn

Pot and Porn: Not a Good IdeaI've always told pot smokers that they are in for a very difficult future. They are setting themselves up for a life of suffering. This is true also for the student who clicks onto Internet pornography. A priest friend of mine recently told me that 90% of the confessions he receives have to do with Internet pornography. Pornography is highly addictive. First, marijuana. It is true that marijuana is not physically addictive. It is addictive nevertheless. The addiction is of a psychological kind. Now the physical effects of this drug are well documented. I would like to focus instead on the effects that this drug has on one's character and personality development. The first thing to consider is the addiction process. One takes a drug in order to induce a high. But what goes up, must come down, and so it is only a matter of time before one comes down from the drug induced high. This drop is referred to as being "stoned". Note the diagram below:

Now the horizontal line represents the state of normalcy, that is, the state of feeling normal. The high is not one's normal way of feeling. When a person continues to use the drug, what happens eventually is that he soon comes down from the high, but drops lower than the line of normalcy. In other words, he becomes very stoned. What that means is that he has to use more of the drug to induce the same high he had previously. But in coming down from that high, he drops even further below the line of normalcy. At this point we have a problem. For in order to get the same high as he previously had, the drug user must smoke literally twice as much. Moreover, in order to feel normal, he must smoke as much marijuana as he used to smoke at first when trying to get high. The addict must drink or smoke pot simply in order to feel normal, that is, in order to cope with life's problems and difficulties. This is the case with pornography as well. Serial killer Ted Bundy speaks very poignantly of the addiction process as it occurred in his life with respect to pornography. He started off reading the soft-core pornography, the kind we find in drugstores. He said that he began to crave it more and more, until he eventually moved on pornography of a harder nature (hard-core), that is, violent pornography. Eventually he began to wonder whether actually physically raping someone would give him the same high that he was no longer able to get by just reading about it. When he was old enough to drink, it was alcohol that destroyed his inhibitions and opened the door to the violent and tragic life that ensued. He ended up raping and killing 36 women, one of whom was a twelve-year-old girl.

The psychological effects of marijuana are well documented, and all of them without exception have been validated by former students of mine who were (and possibly are still) heavily addicted to pot. Erodes logical thinking.HallucinationLoss of AmbitionPersonality ArrestMarijuana erodes one's ability to think logically and deductively. The pot smoker becomes irrational, that is, a "pot-head". He has a very difficult time drawing logically valid conclusions. He no longer reasons with ease. Now it is 'rationality' that distinguishes us from brute animals. What this means is that the chronic drug user becomes more and more beastly. The drug user also begins to hallucinate. He may begin to hear voices, such as people calling his name. The students I know who used pot have all admitted to hallucinating. Now, when you begin to hallucinate, you are on your way to mental illness. It is the mentally ill that hallucinate. You are at the first stages of mental illness. The drug user is altering the biochemistry of his brain. This is not a good sign.

Loss of ambition is a very serious effect of marijuana use. The drug user does not readily see this effect in his life, but he eventually becomes disenchanted with life. That is, he becomes bored with life. It is ambition that gives us the energy to act and move forward in order to achieve something in life. It is through genuine achievement that we feel naturally high on life. Without ambition, we're stuck, like a car without fuel. We're not going anywhere. The drug user does not want to achieve anything. What he wants is the feeling that he was achieved something without the actual achievement. He wants the feeling that his problems are all behind him and that his life is all together (integrity) without actually solving his problems and without actually being all together. The drug user does not accomplish anything of real significance. Instead of living for and promoting the common good, he becomes a parasite and will choose to benefit from the common good without actually contributing to it. The most grievous effect of drug use (and addiction in general) is Personality Arrest. Personality development stops. One continues to grow physically, but one does not grow and develop psychologically. The drug user remains the age at which he first began to use the drug. If he started smoking pot at 15, he will remain 15 years old psychologically, even when he celebrates his 25th or 30th birthday. Now the pot smoker does not see this, but everyone around him does (provided they too are not addicts). Consider the diagram below:

The green line represents those who continue to develop psychologically and personally. The black line represents the pot smoker. At the grade 9 level, the gap between the two is not as noticeable. But as time passes, the maturity gap between the pot smoker and the non-user gets wider and more noticeable. By the time the drug user is in OAC, any teacher with just a semblance of intuition can pick him out in a minute. They look like they are in OAC, but they are still back in grade 9 or grade 8. They are just not with the rest of the class psychologically. They laugh at jokes that are not funny, they suffer from an identity crisis, that is, they do not know who they are, and so they take on a role in order to provide themselves with some sort of identity. Now, life will only get increasingly more difficult. A 15 year old boy cannot deal with the problems of a 25 or 30 year old man. He cannot even deal with the problems of an 18 year old. But the drug user is psychologically 15 years old, and so when he is an adult, he finds life very difficult to handle. He cannot hold down his marriage, he cannot hold down a job (he becomes disenchanted with his work). We really only grow when we tackle life's problems and difficulties head on. But this is just what the drug user will not do. He will induce a high in order to achieve the feeling that his problems are behind him. But in fact, they are not. They are still in front of him, and he has not overcome them. And so he never develops. It is similar to someone in Phys Ed class who refuses to jog with the rest of the class, and instead ducks out behind some bushes and sits there for half an hour while the rest of the class presses onwards. The rest of the class eventually gets in shape, while the slacker never develops physically and aerobically.

We’ve just read an article on marijuana, addiction, and the effects of smoking pot. The addiction process Decide what point each paragraph in your summary will address. The effects of smoking pot personality arrest

1 What’s the article about? What’s a “high”? What is meant by “stoned”? The addiction process Why the drug user gradually needs more. leave open

2 opening sentence Destroys logical thinking and hallucination Loss of ambition The effects of smoking pot Personality Arrest leave open

3 opening sentence on how we are going to focus on personality arrest in more detail how personality arrest is more noticeable as time goes on. why life will become more difficult personality arrest analogy with phys ed. Concluding Sentence

Writing a Summary By: D. McManaman