Part 2: Summarizing An Author's Viewpoint In An Informational Text

Neil MacGregor

An authors viewpoint is the way in which he or she perceives and discusses a topic. A viewpoint is affected by:

External Sources

Authors also use sources within a text to supplement, support, or extend their own ideas.

Read the excerpt from "Hokusai's The Great Wave" by Neil MacGregor. Here's a snatch of the letter from the president of the United States that Perry delivered to the Japanese emperor: Many of the large ships-of-war destined to visit Japan have not yet arrived in these seas, and the undersigned, as an evidence of his friendly intentions, has brought but four of the smaller ones, designing, should it become necessary, to return to Edo in the ensuing spring with a much larger force. But it is expected that the government of your imperial majesty will render such return unnecessary, by acceding at once to the very reasonable and pacific overtures contained in the president's letter . . . This was textbook gunboat diplomacy, and it worked. Japanese resistance melted, and very quickly the Japanese embraced the new economic model, becoming energetic players in the international markets they had been forced to join. They began to think differently about the sea that surrounded them, and their awareness of the possible opportunities in the world beyond grew fast. What type of outside source does MacGregor use in this excerpt?

Which line would be best to include in a summary of "Early Victorian Tea Set"?

Which statement expresses a viewpoint?

Read the excerpt from "Early Victorian Tea Set." So our tea set is really a three-piece social history of nineteenth-century Britain. It is also a lens through which historians such as Linda Colley can look at a large part of the history of the world: It does underline how much empire, consciously or not, eventually impacts on everybody in this country. If in the nineteenth century you are sitting at a mahogany table drinking tea with sugar, you are linked to virtually every continent on the globe. You are linked with the Royal Navy, which is guarding the sea routes between these continents, you are linked with this great tentacular capital machinery through which the British control so many parts of the world and ransack them for commodities, including commodities that can be consumed by the ordinary civilian at home. Which is the best summary of this excerpt?

Read the excerpt from "Early Victorian Tea Set." But a loving, tranquil cup of tea has a violent hinterland. When all tea came into Europe from China, the British East India Company traded opium for silver and used that silver to buy tea. The trade was so important that it brought the two countries to war. The first of the conflicts, which we still refer to as the Opium Wars - they were in fact just as much about tea - broke out more or less as our teapot was leaving the Wedgwood factory. Partly because of these difficulties with China, in the 1830s the British set up plantations in the area around Calcutta and Indian tea was exempted from import duty to encourage demand. What is the author's viewpoint in this excerpt?

Read the excerpt from "Hokusai's The Great Wave." But there are other ways of reading Hokusai's Great Wave. Look a little closer and you see that the beautiful wave is about to engulf three boats with frightened fishermen, and Mount Fuji is so small that you, the spectator, share the feeling that the sailors in the boats must have as they look to shore - it's unreachable, and you are lost. This is, I think, an image of instability and uncertainty. The Great Wave tells us about Japan's state of mind as it stood on the threshold of the modern world, which the US was soon going to force it to join. Which is the best summary of this excerpt?

Read the excerpt from"Early Victorian Tea Set." What could be more domestic, more unremarkable, more British, than a nice cup of tea? You could of course put the question the other way round and ask what could be less British than a cup of tea, given that tea is made from plants grown in India or China and often sweetened by sugar from the Caribbean. It is one of the ironies of British national identity - or perhaps it says everything about our national identity - that the drink which has become the worldwide caricature of Britishness has nothing indigenous about it, but is the result of centuries of global trade and a complex imperial history. What is the author's viewpoint in this excerpt?

What must students use when summarizing an informational text? Check all that apply.

Read the excerpt from "Hokusai's The Great Wave." So The Great Wave, far from being the quintessence of Japan, is a hybrid work, a fusion of European materials and conventions with a Japanese sensibility. No wonder this image has been so loved in Europe: it is an exotic relative, not a complete stranger. It also, I think, shows a peculiarly Japanese ambivalence. As a viewer, you have no place to stand, no footing. You too must be in a boat, under the Great Wave, and in danger. The dangerous sea over which European things and ideas travelled has, however, been drawn with a profound ambiguity. What is the author's viewpoint in this excerpt?

Read the excerpt from "Early Victorian Tea Set" by Neil MacGregor. As it got cheaper, tea also spread rapidly to the working classes. By 1800, as foreigners remarked, it was the new national drink. By 1900 the average tea consumption per person in Britain was a staggering 6 lbs (3 kilograms) a year. In 1809 the Swede Erik Gustav Geijer commented: Next to water, tea is the Englishman's proper element. All classes consume it . . . in the morning one may see in many places small tables set up under the open sky, around which coal-carters and workmen empty their cups of delicious beverage. How does Geijer's comment support MacGregor's point?