Chapter Summary Rubric
Your assignment is to write a summary over one chapter from the book Why We Get Sick: the new science of Darwinian Medicine by R. Neese and G.Williams

Due Date
Sunday evenings at or before 6pm

Summary Requirements
A good summary accurately describes the main point(s) and important details of the chapter. Look at the section headings and use them to organize your summary.

In order to be accurate and concise the writer must be thoroughly familiar with the original work. If too long, a summary may be paraphrasing the original work, but if too short, important details may be left out. Paraphrasing is not allowed nor is using quotations from the text itself. Think 500 words, no more.

Hints
· Read and reread chapter as many times as necessary to gain a full understanding of the chapter.

· Opinions are unnecessary. For example, “I thought the part about radioactivity was really interesting” is largely irrelevant.

· Always name the authors and chapter title in the introductory paragraph, usually in the first sentence. From then on refer to authors by last name.

· Always use present tense to discuss the chapter and facts from the chapter.

· When referring to the chapter always capitalize the title and place it in quotation marks. Do not use italics.

· In summarizing, identify the main ideas and supporting information.

· Is the main idea conjecture or is there direct evidence for it from the literature?

· How many ideas are presented in the chapter, are all of these present in your summary.

· If examples are given supporting the author’s hypotheses or conjecture, are they mentioned in your summary?

· Explain what the examples illustrate.

· Identify the recurring theme in the chapters. All told, is the author’s thesis credible? Is the evidence or conjecture sufficient to support their thesis.

· If you had to summarize what you read to someone in your English class, what points would you mention and what evidence/conjecture would you describe?

· If you had to summarize what was covered in the chapter to your Grandmother, what points would you highlight and what evidence/conjecture would you mention?

· The premise, the theses and hypotheses, the evidence all comes from the life sciences. Demonstrate to your reader that you are a biologist capable of identifying the critical elements of the author’s narrative.