For the two readings, separately, present a 250 word summary of the reading and an analysis devoted to a close reading of a passage from the reading of no less than 250 words and no more than 500. Pithiness and economy of phrase are of great importance in this assignment. The summaries should be thought of as a preliminary for the analyses to follow—summarize those aspects of the assigned reading that you will analyze. Provide separate headers for Plato’s Symposium (Source: https://www.scribd.com/doc/251747515/Plato-Symposium-Literal-Translation-by-Seth-Benardete) and Plutarch’s Alcibiades (Source: Plutarch. Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, Volume I. Arthur Hugh Clough, trans. New York: Modern Library, 2001. Pages 258-290.) as well as headers for the summary and analysis sections. Include word counts at the end of each section. Again, the word counts should be as follows: Plato’s Symposium Summary 250 words, Analysis minimum 250 words/maximum 500 words; Total: minimum 500 words, maximum 750 words. Plutarch’s Alcibiades Summary 250 words, Analysis minimum 250 words/maximum 500 words; Total: minimum 500 words, maximum 750 words. HELPFUL FEEDBACK: Summaries and analyses should be source heavy, meaning it would be alright if every sentence had a citation. You don’t have to include that many citations, but that standard should give you an idea of how much to justify the claims you make with references to support them. Plato citations should look like Plato, 297a, line 2. Basically, cite whenever possible in the summaries. Each analysis should pick a single, meaningful passage to analyze, whether a sentence or a small section, and block quote it in the beginning, so that the word count starts afterward. Cite whenever there is information in the text to justify your analysis claims and if applicable, you can tie back the passage to how it relates to each reading, respectively in the separate sections. This paper should be overwhelmed with particulars from the text. // There are two parts to these weekly papers—summary and analysis. The two sections should be distinct. Good exegesis requires strong organization, and parsing your thoughts between the ‘objective’ summary, and the ‘subjective’ analysis. The summary points me to “facts” from the text. The analysis interprets those facts. Opinions and feelings have no place here. Delineating summary from analysis is an essential first step in bringing order to your thinking. So the two parts of the paper should be distinct, but related. The summary should include only those aspects of the text that pertain to the material examined in the analysis. And you should use each section to ‘sharpen’ the other, removing anything repetitive or non-essential and developing anything that remains unclear. This will require some revision—there’s a process of discovery and craftsmanship, fitting together the two pieces once you’ve completed the rough outline. // Remove all but the most essential language from the page. Meaning, strip each sentence down to its essentials. Begin with the summary. If it’s not telling me something important about the text, take it out. Keep an eye on diction. This will mean breaking a longer sentence up into two or more smaller sentences, removing most adjectives and adverbs, subordinate and prepositional phrases, and anything that repeats information already laid out in the paper. // The exegete will “use the text to explain the text.” The inference from this is that, when you find yourself discussing material or ideas or terms not found in the text, what you’re writing is no longer exegesis. It may be tempting to rely on more familiar, modern terms and concepts—fascism, rights, values, ideology, etc. But none of these have a place in exegesis of the material. Greeks didn’t use those words, didn’t think in those terms. Thank you
#Write #Platos #Symposium
