Log Off Summary

Composition Online: A Example of the Summary

John Nelson
Prof. John Nelson
Compostion
June 13, 2001 1

Summary of "Will We Ever Log Off?"2

The Internet has encroached upon many parts of American lives and made many things possible that weren’t years ago. That trend is going to continue, says Robert Wright in his essay “Will We Ever Log Off?” a part of Time.com’s “Visions of the 21^st Century” collection. Wright says that Internet use will continue in unexpected ways, and that the changes will have both positive and negative effects. 3

Wright says as bandwidth and computing power grow, people will be able to connect more and in new ways, for both social and business reasons.4 Virtual business lunches will be possible, he says, as well as tele-immersion, which “is to videoconferencing as virtual reality is to Pac-Man.” “If it works,” Wright says, “it will give you the visual experience of being in the same room with a person who is actually in another city.” 5

Even playing sports with people online will be possible, Wright says; in fact, it’s already being done. He notes, however, that the online version of many things won’t have the feel of the real thing, or at least not some of it: hiking online (with virtual reality gear and a treadmill), even enhanced with pine scent, can’t match a walk in the real woods.

Wright points out that the future of the Internet will be a continuation of its past. People will continue to connect for many reasons, whether they are for shared pastimes or obsessions, or to “bridge rifts between nations.” Translating will get better; different peoples will understand each other better, and common interests such as environmental issues will bring them together.

There’s a downside to all of this, Wright points out. Connecting with the people around us in the real world who might not share our interests and obsessions also has a value, he says, and “are reminders of the larger community we’re part of—multicultural, socioeconomically diverse yet bound by a common nature.” Being online takes time away from that reminder, he says, and that’s a big downside. But regardless of what people think about the changes coming, they're going to come. 6

Notes. (The numbers above are only to help illustrate what I'm doing in the essay. They shouldn't appear in your essasy.) Here's the original essay.

1. This is the header in the form the MLA recommends. Use it.

2. I just used a plain-jane title. You can make yours something more jazzy, but this is fine.

3. Notice this has the title, the author, and the general source in it. That's all important, so your reader knows right where things are coming from. The first paragraph also has, in the last sentence, a quick summary of the point of the essay. Notice that the verb "says" is present tense, as are all the references to what is in the article. MLA considers the article to be continually "saying" something. Other formats, such as the APA, might use the past tense, with the idea that the article has "said" the thing.

4. Note that almost every sentence attributes the ideas to Wright. Do this as much as you think is necessary in order to keep it clearly in mind that the ideas are all Wright's. There should never be any question that the ideas are his. Make sure every paragraph has an attribution tag (the "he says").

5. Notice that I've made the attribution tag a part of every sentence that has a quotation in it. I don't want any question about where the quotation comes from.

6. I might want to comment on the ideas here, but I can't. It's a summary, and only that. If you think of the cartoon essay, you were asked to provide perspective on the ideas in the cartoon, but here you're not. You've got to be just a good conduit to the original ideas. I'm at 335 words, which might be a little short, but I thought it was okay.