Now that most of you have provided a list of major details for the first assignment, it's time for the next step, which is drafting the essay. There is, however, more to it than just drafting the essay.

First, decide which chapter you want to more fully summarize and respond to. The summary will go beyond the listing of the major details to include examples that illustrate those details. You can see in the table below that most of the major details, such as "deception can be bad for your health," often contains more than a single example. With above major detail, we get secondary details such as the Listerine halitosis scam and the Seville Marketing HIV home test kit that didn't work. You don't need to include both of these secondary examples to illustrate the major detail, but you can if you can be succinct about it. The summary section of the essay should be broken into several paragraphs, with the division points among paragraphs being movement to a new major detail. Each summary paragraph can contain two or three of the major details, depending upon how long they get. In general, shorter paragraphs are easier to read than longer paragraphs, but if the paragraphs are too short, the reading/writing becomes choppy.

The response portion of the assignment calls for you to tell your readers what you think about one or two, but certainly no more than three of the ideas touched on in your summary section. Generally speaking, the fewer points you cover, and the greater detail you cover them in, the better the response can be. Too many points given too little development leaves readers unsure about what is going on. If you were to write about something, such as the use of glittering generalities, you can open with a brief description of what these generalities are and why it matters that we are aware of them. I suggest you then follow with an example of a glittering generality taken from the text (but provide a different one than you used in the summary section so as to give your reader greater coverage). Then provide an example of glittering generalities you've seen in the world around you. Two come right to mind for me. The first is Barak Obama's call for change, for the "audacity of hope." One of the biggest concerns Obama is facing is that this is empty rhetoric. What does it mean to hope? To change? These are glittering generalities because they can mean everything but nothing simultaneously. Similarly, while riding my bike out in the Valley Ford area, I've seen advertisements for internet service offering "satellite speed." Every time I see this, I wonder just what the heck it means and how it works. What is "satellite speed"? How exactly do users connect to the internet? The company name is something like "Wild Blue" which makes it seem that the service is happening through the sky, wireless, but who knows. So, I could write about one political and one commercial example based on "glittering generalities" were I so inclined.

The essay's introduction should set up the response, whatever it is you think about what you respond to. If I were to write about the problem with glittering generalities in commercial and political advertising and communication, I'd probably write about how people who use those words don't expect us to think too deeply on the topic, that they expect us to buy into what amounts to side bites of information that really contains no information. I might be charitable and suggest that these slogans and sound bites are merely meant to get our attention and then we should look more deeply into things, but I also have to suspect most people may not agree with that. The introduction should make it clear why you think this, or whatever it is you think about what you respond to, matters, why your reader should care or find it of interest.

The conclusion is your last chance to get readers to see things your way. One thing that can be done is to restate the claim of the thesis, and even restate the major reasons the thesis is one a reader should care about, but don't stop there. It's a good idea to plug the discussion into a broader but related context. For instance, if you were to focus on the political aspect, you could suggest that we endanger our democracy and nation and freedoms and rights if we are lazy and buy into these slogans and glittering generalities. You might even conclude with a call to action by challenging your readers to look more deeply into the issue, to avoid companies or politicians who engage in this sort of strategy.

The due date for the reading draft is Monday at midnight. See below for the "map" of the two chapters. You'll want to be sure each of the major details, the outer-most bullet points, are included in your summary. If you have any questions, post them here or send me an email. I will be responding to late major detail summaries once each receives two responses.