Draft Workshop: Short Essay #1

Reviewer: Pierre-Alexandre Fortin

Author: Mohamed Naiem

Write down what the author of the summary identified and

summarized in his or her own words as the thesis of the
essay.

The educationists should stop trying to make students highly

intelligent, and they should start to serve as “painkillers” to the
sickness of stupidity if they want to be respected and effective in
their tasks.

Map out the summary’s main points. (you might write a list
of topic sentences)

1. Academics show disrespect for educationists.

2. Educationists don’t have a solid knowledge of the work of great

philosophers.

3. Educators should help students to be less dull instead of trying

to make them highly intelligent.

4. Imbecility has been studied by philosophers in the past.

5. There are different forms of ‘balderash’

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Did the writer provide a specific and objective summary of

the essay?

I think this summary is objective, and at no point did I feel that the
writer of the summary intervened in the thought process of the
original author. The only time I was uncertain about the objectivity
was in the first paragraph of the summary. This sentence, for
example, had me a little confused: ‘…Postman noticed that
academics show disrespect for educationists, which sounds odd
since the most renowned…’. I did not know who was expressing this
opinion.

What evidence can you find that proves the author was
objective?

The source essay seems to be very opinionated, so it is bound to

have some passages that are not very objective. However, there was
always something in the summary to specify that they were not the
student’s opinions but the original author’s one.

Did the author paraphrase at least two passages?

Yes he did.

Did the author provide at least two quotations?

Yes he did.

Identify at least two examples that the author used to

support his/her summary.

He discussed the works done on imbecility by some philosophers and

gave examples of characteristics that were used by those same
philosophers to identify stupidity. He also enumerates different
forms of balderash, as stated by the author of the essay.

Identify any minor details that the author included that you
believe distracted from the summary’s main argument.
Explain. (The writer will lose points if he or she includes
minor details; conduct a complete analysis or review.)

After two careful readings of the summary, I did not find anything
that confused me or diverted my attention away from the main
thesis. Examples are plentiful in this summary but they are well
chosen and go well with the purpose of the writer.

Did they author write a one-paragraph response to the

essay’s main idea in his or her conclusion? Was it relevant or
meaningful to the summary’s main audience? (You are the
intended audience.)

I believe he did not write it, perhaps because he did not know that
it was required. However, after having read his blog entry, I am
convinced that he has a lot of interesting ideas on the matter.

Did the author include proper citations and a works cited

page? (Since you are publishing online, just include a
heading for Works Cited and any sources used in your
summary. In this case, it will probably consist of one item,
the summary essay.)

No, he did not.