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Thank you We sneak summary versus analysis allah shmoop we

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get all kinds of assignments in english class obviously there's

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reading on reading and more reading but we're also expected

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to write intelligently about what we read Enter the essay

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well there are two types of essays we commonly sweat

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over an english class although we might find these essays

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haunting us elsewhere too They are summary essay and the

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analysis essay Well summaries are easy so easy there's simply

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a brief restatement of whatever text we read put in

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our own words we don't have to have an opinion

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we don't have to evaluate anything A summary only wants

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the facts Jax for example say were asked to write

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a summary of george r r martin's epic novel a

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game of thrones here's ours winter is coming and so

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are the murderous ice zombies Ned stark of winterfell dips

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his toe in the pool of political intrigue and then

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promptly wishes he had good things happen to bad people

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Bad things happen to good people and start a family

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gets ripped apart now obviously a summary essay will consist

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of more than this but note how all we're doing

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Here is retelling the story in our own pithy words

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while summaries are all about conveying what happened in the

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text and nothing more and analysis is a little more

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complex in this type of s a wee break what

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we've read into smaller components so we can get a

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better grip on the whole let's go back to a

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game of thrones in an analysis essay we're not going

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to spend the assignment regurgitating story We've got one paragraph

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up front to get that business out of the way

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Instead we're going to ask ourselves questions like wide there's

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martin retell the story from so many different viewpoints and

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does this technique work Why did martin title his book

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a game of thrones When what goes on in the

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story all the dying incest and getting thrown out of

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powers and stuff it's so clearly not a game as

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we normally understand the word game And why haven't the

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rulers of westeros clubbed together to buy a throne made

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out of something other than swords When we analyze these

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questions which cover smaller parts of a sprawling story then

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we'll have a better grasp of the novel is a

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hole more generally what we're looking for when we analyze

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a text is what the author is arguing for or

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against how well here she supports that argument and what

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the strengths and weaknesses of the text are along with

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whether the author considers alternative viewpoints or not As with

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a summary we aren't supposed to present our opinion in

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analysis or at least not much of an opinion waken

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state whether or not we think the author's argument holds

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water or whether the author's sources are reliable or not

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But we can't rip the author a new one if

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we completely disagree with what he or she says So

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in brief a summary is a restatement of what we've

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read and analysis contains a breakdown of the text and

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we pretty much have to leave our opinions at home

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when we write these types of essays The good news

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is if we do accidentally slip what we think into

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an essay well we aren't likely to take a sword

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to the neck like poor old ned stark at least 00:03:20.13 --> [endTime] let's Hope not

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