Response to Summary's of OWS article

I'd like to start with a question: Does the summary have to start with the introduction and follow the article linearly?

I would say not necessarily. Furthermore, summaries are really hard to sustain without moving into "interpretation" mode. I think most of you did a great job giving equal attention to about 3 main parts of the argument (most of you, in fact, divided up your response in 3 sections).

The first regarded the introduction, which pointed out the current status of occupy wall street as something that has become less interesting as we have begun to "understand" what the movement "is."

Many of you mentioned the analogy of the reality tv show and some of you defined and honed in on reification. The idea that Occupy has become a "thing" and that it can be defined is the main problem for Fitzgerald (most of you pointed this out).

Most of you decided to cite the difference between "it" and "us" and some of you cited or paraphrased Fitzgerald's idea that we need to understand Occupy Wall Street as a claim rather than a "thing" that can be easily defined. This is a main point of the argument.

All in all, I was happy with the summaries. I think that we need to keep in mind that while a decent summary can be written on the fly, it usually comes with several revisions, combining sentences and thoughts in order to make it as concise as possible. This will be especially important when you condense Geertz (30 pgs give or take) to a mere 300 words!! Sometimes it might be useful to write a rough sketch that is WAAAAY too long and then combine and condense afterwards. I know this is more work, but, trust me, it frequently pays off.