Expanded summary of Bok

When more than one person summarizes the same essay, a different "spin" can be put on each person's summary. Even though most ideas are summarized the same, every person puts a voice of their own to their summary. When reading other summaries of fellow classmates, I found that among them were some similarities in ideas, differences in the way the paragraphs were organized and talked about, and different voices. I chose to read the summaries of Beth Guthmiller, Brenda Porter, and Melanie Woldt.
After reading all of the summaries, I noticed that we all had a good idea of what was being discussed, and nothing seemed too confusing. All of the summaries includuded information on offensive things that happen and how they are still protected by the First Amendment. We all discussed how there needs to be a balance between free speech and racial tension. We also all mentioned that in order to make things better, people who do insensitive acts need to be ifgnored and educated.
In addition to the similarites, the summaries all had their differences. One thing I noticed is that Melanie's summary didn't mention that the offensive symbol was the Confederate flag. This enabled her audience to relate to all offensive material, racial or not. Another thing I noticed was that Beth's summary didn't include anything about censorship and the extent to which something is offensive. And finally, Brenda related the incident of the Confederate flag to everyday situations and other insensitive acts that can take place outside of universities. Even though some information was left out, all of the summaries were tied together well.
When taking into consideration all of the similarities and differences, I realized that even though we all summarized the same essay, a different voice was put on each one. Beth's summary along with Brenda's states how Bok is protecting free speech and expression on the campus of Harvard. Melanie points out how Bok is writing about the balance between free speech and racial tension. Finally, mine includes that Bok's argument is about censorship on free speech.
All four summaries included a lot of the same information, which is a good thing. Summarizing a sholarly essay means noticing the important points and stating those in a very short version of the essay. Summarizing a work should not include one's own ideas, because it is not ethical to make someone's ideas your own.