Sample Summary

Students, please find here a sample of the kind of summary that I want you to write, as discussed here. For some of you, the article will be familiar, as at least one of my classes has received it.

On 20 September 2012, Daniel W. Drezner's "Why Presidents Love Foreign Affairs" appeared in the online New York Times.  In the article, Drezner asserts that, because so much of the presidential duty is concerned with foreign affairs, voters ought to attend to candidates' stances on overseas concerns much more than they do.  Instead, Drezner notes, voters pay attention to candidates' statements about domestic economy, a concern which is not the president's alone, but is heavily influenced by Congress.  Drezner also notes that presidential missteps in foreign policy can have drastic consequences in terms of lives and financial outlay that cannot be recovered.  He makes a successful case for having voters pay more attention to foreign policy statements, aided by his conversational tone throughout the article.