Hi all,
I have used structured précis (summaries) as a mechanism to get HCI design
students (both grad and undergrad) to write about difficult readings (e.g.,
digital culture theory).
As an undergrad, I had to write précis for philosophy classes, and they
helped me wrap my head around Hegel and the like. So I tried précis with our
students, but the open-endedness of a traditional précis led to very uneven
results, so I subsequently developed a structured précis template. It's a
compromise, in that it doesn't give them practice structuring an argument,
but at least it encourages them to read carefully and to develop a sense for
how to read academic theory productively.
If it's helpful, here are links to the instructions and the template itself.
http://www.informatics.indiana.edu/jbardzel/images/precis_instructions.pdf
http://www.informatics.indiana.edu/jbardzel/images/precis_template.pdf
Jeffrey
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Jeffrey Bardzell, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Human-Computer Interaction Design
School of Informatics, Indiana University
812.856.1850
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