SUBMISSION TIMELINE: We’ll share drafts in small groups on October 1, either as Google Docs or a page on your portfolio website. Revisions to your website page will be due Oct. 22.

Rationale: In project one, we began the work of reviewing personal experiences for clues to our current assumptions. Now, project two invites you to bring those experiences and assumptions into conversation with some experts: What questions have rhetoric and composition (“rhet-comp”) scholars been asking? How have they been investigating their questions, and what have they discovered? Finally and most importantly, what might be the implications of this expert research for your own theory of writing? 

Task: Your task is to write (a) brief “rhetorical” summaries of at least five rhet-comp research articles and (b) a process note (of 250-300 words) that brings these five studies into conversation with your own experience (and each other) and considers what the implications are for your developing understanding of writing—and then (c) arrange these summaries, along with your response, in an engaging way on your portfolio website. 

What is a “rhetorical” summary? What makes a summary “rhetorical” is that it tries to contextualize the text’s message and relevance. In other words, a rhetorical summary does more than summarize what a text says—it tries to articulate (a) what a text is trying to do, (b) why it’s trying to do this, and (c) how it’s going about it. Follow this link to a template.

Genre: The traditional project this comes closest to is an annotated bibliography (student sample | expert sample), which lists and summarizes (“annotates”) several sources—books, articles, websites, etc.—often in a linear, text-heavy, double-spaced document. You could certainly design your project this way, but given its web-based delivery, consider how you might use the affordances of web composition—from hyperlinks to embedded objects and beyond—to show your audience something significant about the relationships between these studies and your own thinking. (You might even think of this as a kind of academic mixtape or playlist; your reflections are the liner notes.)

Purpose: Why compile a bunch of rhetorical summaries? At least two concerns motivate this project: (1) For one, writing rhetorical summaries may help you avoid a common pitfall among first-year college writers: approaching research as a process of cherry-picking quotes, totally out of context, from people who seem to agree with you, rather than genuinely investigating a complex problem in ways that go beyond “pro” and “con.” Just because a scholar publishes something doesn’t make it true or relevant—and they’ll often be the first to acknowledge this. (2) Second, the process of compiling a group of these summaries can help you make the most of the research process, by keeping track of what you’ve read, developing material you might use in other projects, or generating ideas by putting several studies next to each other, literally, on the page or screen. In short, writing rhetorical summaries can help you become a better reader and researcher.

Resources that may be helpful: 

Minimum requirements to complete the review project: 

  • Give your project a title that previews your principal takeaways from this project. 
  • Find and summarize the four research studies we’re reading together as a class: Porter (1986), Howard, Serviss & Rodrigue (2010), Sommers (1980), and Thonney (2011). 
  • Find and summarize at least one additional research articles published by a rhet-comp scholar (or in a rhet-comp journal). 
  • In each summary, articulate briefly (in around 100-125 words) what the resource is trying to accomplish by identifying its motivating problem, intended audience, central claim, varieties of supporting evidence, and apparent goal: what does the author want the audience to do? 
  • Conclude each summary by noting briefly (in no more than a sentence) how the resource might inform your understanding of writing: what implications or new questions does this resource suggest to you? 
  • Make a good-faith effort to design and deliver your summaries and reflection in an engaging way, leveraging the affordances of your website. 
  • Make a good-faith effort to provide sufficient publication information for each article summarized so that interested readers can find them for themselves.
  • Craft your language choices (words, sentences, punctuation, paragraphs) to help readers process the information, focus on the message (that is, not be distracted by typos or clunkers), and enjoy the summaries and reflections.
  • Share your initial draft on your course portfolio website by Oct. 1, or another date worked out in advance with the instructor and/or the writers in your PR group. 
  • Introduce your annotated bibliography with a 250-300 word process note that briefly describes (a) the purpose of the project; (b) your own goals or intentions (what you’re trying to accomplish); (c) why you’ve made the choices you have (re: content, modality, organization, style, etc.); and (d) what you’ve learned about writing (or about yourself as a writer) from both the studies you’ve summarized and the process of putting this project together.