hist-115-discussion-essay-about-a-jstor-article

I will give you the article. It is about Documenting Mexico’s Culture War.

In terms of the content of the report, I am looking for two main points of discussion. First, you should devote the first half of the report to a summary of the main points that the author is trying to convey to the reader. To help you to address this issue, consider some of these questions: What type of article is this? Is the author presenting an original feature, or is he/she conducting a book review? If this is a book review, what book (or books) is being reviewed? What is the author’s purpose for writing this article? What is the author’s academic or professional background?

As for the second point of discussion, this is where you provide your opinion or perceptions of the article. In other words, what did you think about it? What were the strengths or weaknesses of the article? How did the article relate to the class? You are definitely encouraged to write in first person singular (I feel that…, I think..) as you provide your opinions. As a general rule of thumb, your JSTOR review should be about 60% summary and 40% commentary. Thus a 5-page review with about 3 & 1⁄2 pages summary and 1 & 1⁄2 pages commentary is an ideal proportion.