Step 1: Read the following summary of the novel Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. List any sentences that should be omitted from the summary. Then, specify what kind of information should have been included but is missing.

Catcher in the Rye This book details how a young man named Holden Caulfield has been expelled from school for poor achievement, not the first time this has happened to him. Getting expelled is a serious matter, and most schools do not take this drastic step lightly. This time, however, Holden decides to go to New York City for a few days before returning home to give his parents the bad news. New York City is a fascinating place to visit, with its museums, theaters, parks, and many restaurants. With its widely varied neighborhoods, the city is wonderful just to explore. You can have great meals from many ethnic traditions, including Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Pakistani, Afghan, Thai, Mexican, Russian, Korean, and many more. Holden expresses his thoughts and activities while he is in New York. He has periods of depression, impulsive spending, and unpredictable behavior. This eventually leads to a nervous collapse. There are many people like this, who travel through our society appearing perfectly normal but are actually lost within themselves. Estimates of the amount of people who have untreated mental problems have gone as high as 15 percent of the population. As Holden's behavior becomes more and more bizarre, the people with whom he interacts try to avoid recognizing that anything is wrong. Even in his growing confusion, Holden feels that we all lead empty lives but spend a lot of energy in attempting to ignore the emptiness. Amid his own emptiness and isolation, Holden states that the world is full of "phonies" who are out for phony gains. The news is so full of crime and political accusations that it's impossible to know who to believe these days. The reader is left to wonder whether Holden is actually the one who is insane. Could it be that we live in an insane society that refuses to acknowledge the hopelessness and emptiness in our lives? It is a strange book.

		Which sentences should be deleted? [Hint] To create paragraphs in your essay response, type <p> at the beginning of the paragraph, and </p> at the end.
		What is the missing information? [Hint] To create paragraphs in your essay response, type <p> at the beginning of the paragraph, and </p> at the end.
		Step 2: Read the following summary of the movie trilogy The Lord of the Rings. List any sentences that should be omitted from the summary. Then, specify what kind of information should have been included but is missing. An ancient ring that was thought lost for a very long time has been found. The ring ends up in the possession of a hobbit named Frodo. Frodo is told that this is the Master Ring, the one ring that controls all the rings of power. He is told that he must make a difficult and historic journey to the Cracks of Doom, where he must destroy the ring. Frodo makes his journey with several friends, encountering evil and danger all the way. In the movies, Frodo is played by Elijah Wood, and his friend Samwise is played by Sean Astin. One of the most interesting characters in the movies is Gollum, played by Andy Serkis. Gollum once had possession of the ring for many years. He wants very badly to have it back. After many hazardous adventures, Frodo finally throws the ring into the volcano of Mt. Doom, which destroys the ring. Which sentences should be omitted?   To create paragraphs in your essay response, type <p> at the beginning of the paragraph, and </p> at the end.
		What is the missing information?   To create paragraphs in your essay response, type <p> at the beginning of the paragraph, and </p> at the end.
		Step 3: For each of the following paragraphs, identify the information that should not be included in a summary. 1. George Orwell's novel 1984 is the story of the attempt by a rebellious person named Winston Smith to defy the total mind control of his totalitarian state. Winston works at the Ministry of Truth, where his job is to rewrite historical articles to make the Party, which controls his state, appear to be always correct. But Winston secretly and illegally writes his own thoughts in a beautiful leather-bound diary he keeps at home. Winston is invited by a Party member called O'Brien to a meeting of the Brotherhood, an underground anti-Party organization. Winston goes to the meeting and joins the Brotherhood. Winston is ultimately betrayed by O'Brien, who works with Winston to cure him from being rebellious to the Party. After much torture and brainwashing, Winston submits to being reeducated and becomes a loyal Party member.
		2. In the beginning of Lewis Carroll's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a young girl named Alice sees a white rabbit with a pocket watch. This intrigues her, and she follows the rabbit into a hole, but she ends up falling for a long time. When she lands, she is in a place where many strange things happen to her. At first, she gets upset and cries when nothing seems to go her way, and her tears form a vast ocean in which she gets immersed. But she gradually changes as she experiences one adventure after another. By the time she comes to the final adventure, which includes a bizarre and completely illogical court case, Alice courageously speaks out against the all-powerful Queen of Hearts. Just as she is about to be attacked by many other characters, Alice wakes up from what was all a dream.
		3. In David Bodanis's essay "What's In Your Toothpaste?" he goes through every ingredient in a typical tube of toothpaste, one by one. About 30 to 45 percent of toothpaste is ordinary tap water. The next most prevalent ingredient is chalk—the same material that teachers use to write on blackboards. Chalk is derived from the shells of long-dead ocean creatures, and most of us would probably prefer to look at seashells instead of brushing our teeth with them. Titanium dioxide is another substance in toothpaste; this is the same material that makes white wall paint come out white. Some manufacturers also add optical whitening dyes, which are used in washing machine bleach. To keep the mixture from drying out, glycerine glycol is added. This chemical is also found in car antifreeze. Added to this are some molecules taken from seaweed, some paraffin oil (also used in camping lamps), detergent, flavoring, a sweetener, and formaldehyde (a disinfectant also used in anatomy labs). Bodanis notes that studies show that brushing with plain water often does as good a job as brushing with toothpaste.
		4. Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" features a brilliant man named Dupin who solves a mystery when the police cannot. Dupin reads in the newspaper about the murders of two women in the Rue Morgue (Morgue Street), Paris. He studies the situation and makes amazing deductions about the kind of creature that could have committed these horrible murders and then escaped from a locked apartment. Finally, he proves that the culprit was a terrified pet orangutan. This was the first detective story ever written.
		5. In an essay titled "My Daily Dives in the Dumpster," Lars Eighner describes how he found food, clothing, and other items in dumpsters during a period of his life when he was homeless. He lists the stages a person goes through in learning to be a scavenger. The first stage is disgust and self-loathing, as the person is ashamed to be looking through trash. When the person realizes that some discarded things are perfectly usable, he or she tries to keep everything in sight. Eighner even did some of his writing using a personal computer he found in a dumpster. The final stage comes with the realization that only things that are needed should be kept and the remaining things ignored, no matter how brand-new and pristine they may be. With this final realization, Eighner states that he feels sorry for the "rat-race millions" who acquire all that they can and nightly scavenge the cable channels.
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