History 101:   American Themes: Between the World Wars 

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General Guidelines for Writing a Critical Abstract

     The Quandary: Over the course of this semester, you will be asked the provide the professor with a written critical abstract of an assigned text.  So, what  is this elusive thing?

     The Process:  A critical abstract is essentially a distillation of the most important components of a text.  To succeed in this task, you must read the text carefully, take succinct but informed notes, think about your position/beliefs in relation to the claims of the text, and then attempt to sift through all this information to create an effective presentation of the text and evaluation of its effectiveness to you, as a student of history.

     The Format and Style:  Your abstract should be two- to three-pages (double-spaced) in length.  You should type the number and category headings below and then after them, provide the information requested.  The questions I ask should be considered starting points.  Feel free to move beyond the scope of the questions I have written below.  At the same time, economy of language is vital in a successful abstract.  That is why we call them abstracts, after all.  In sum, please follow a short paragraph answer format.

Note:  Be sure to cite all direct quotations or paraphrasing by noting the appropriate page number(s) in parentheses after your quotation or paraphrasing.

     The Real Deal:  After providing your name and vital information, and the author, title, and bibliographic information of the text at the top of your page, your critical abstract should be divided into the categories:

     1) Problem: You should write the problem in the form of a question or series of questions (generally there are more than one problems in a text)  What is at issue in this text? What problem is the author trying to solve or illuminate?  What are you being persuaded to believe?  (Note: This can be a little tricky to discern in a work of fiction.  Just ask yourself, “What is this author addressing in this work?  What is he/she trying to reveal?”)
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     2) Theses: Sum up the author’s main point(s)/claims in a series of sentences. These should constitute the author’s answers to the questions posed above in the Problem section.  Your description for this category should be heavy on verbs, that is: Yezierska seeks to define such and such and to demonstrate this and that, etc

     3) Argument:  How does the author support his or her claims?  What kind of evidence does he/she use and how?  This should be the longest part of your abstract.  This is the place where you walk the reader through the highlights of the text.  You will comment on methodology here, but should focus on relating the structure of the argument and the evidence deployed to support it.  Again, with a work of fiction, you need to be succinct.  Focus only the plot elements that really matter in your reading of the work.  It is important to note that you are not to evaluate the argument in this section, but merely to reproduce it as best as you can in your own language.

     4) Assessment:  Now you have a chance to respond to the author’s work.  This is the section where your voice should come through.  Does the argument work?  Were you persuaded?  If yes, then why?  If no, why not?  What did you think of this text?  Was it useful?   What are the strong points/weak spots in the argument and why?  How might a student of history use this text?   Not exactly thumbs up or thumbs down in the popular sense, but you get my drift here.

     5) Excise Quotation and Explanation:  What moment in the text was most powerful/meaningful to you?   Share it with the reader and explain why it has stuck with you.  Please push your analysis as deeply as possible here.

     6) Critical Questions: Please write a series of detailed questions (at least three)  pertaining to or emanating from the text for us to discuss as a class.