Sociology
Mr. McCreary
Note Taking Strategy – “Executive Summary”
One of the reading/processing procedures we will use from time-to-time is Executive Summaries. One way to describe an Executive Summary is as a bulleted series of items that accurately summarizes the main ideas and supporting details in a document, report, or even an entire book. An Executive Summary is similar to--but much simpler than--an outline because it does not require parallel structure. In an executive summary you should shorten, paraphrase, and use brief sentences to save space, facilitate learning, and ultimately save you time. This requires you to process information rather than passively copy word-for-word from the original source. Various occupations utilize “executive summaries” to save time. CEO’s, politicians, principals, and talk-show hosts are just a few jobs that might require the use of executive summaries due to the amount of material they need to know and the short amount of time in which to learn it. A good executive summary can be a great time saver and help someone retain large amounts of content.
The following statements are one way to summarize a brief reading on baseball in Japan. Notice that they take the form of short statements and/or sentences to recap the most important information to know. To save space on this sheet I did not skip a line between statements. You should! Executive summaries should be no more than 1 ½ - 2 pages no matter how long the reading.
EXAMPLE: Cultural Diffusion: Baseball in Japan
· Baseball was first introduced to Japan by American teachers in 1867
· Popularity “skyrocketed” after a few highly publicized victories over teams made of Americans
· These victories helped solve Japan’s “inferiority complex” it felt towards the West.
· Baseball is called besuboru in Japan.
· Japan now has an extremely popular professional baseball league where the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants are the most popular and successful.
· Japanese baseball is an example of cultural diffusion
· Japanese values like self-sacrifice and politeness has altered some aspects of the Japanese baseball game including a pitcher bowing to his fielders after a nice play or to a batter after being hit by a pitch.
· The Japanese motto “The nail that sticks up is hammered down” rids their game of “individualistic” or attention grabbing behaviors by players.
· Highly talented, flamboyant players such as Hiromitsu Ochiai are not well liked. He is called a goketsu which means “individual hero.”
· Baseball terms in the American game are not the same as the terms used in Japan.
· Many aspects in the Japanese game focus more attention on the team rather than individual players.
· Foreign born players playing in Japan are called gaijin and are generally not treated as equals in Japan and were almost banned from playing in 1986. Their future participation is still uncertain today.