Practicing Summary and Paraphrase

Jim Culp "4wd Mazda RX-7" July 6, 1985 via Flickr
non-commercial reuse with attribution

In this blog post, I will be following the given directions to practice summary and paraphrasing by doing these to a quote from my article to help me prepare for actually writing my rhetorical analysis.

Original Source: 

"Somewhere, somehow, there were kids getting new BMWs for their sixteenth birthday. Not among my grocery-store peer group. And somewhere, too, there were kids who would never touch a new car from their birth to their death. We were in the middle, with parents who didn't coddle us in California style but who would also silently cover things like food and insurance so we could stretch for the best car we could get and enough $1.09-a-gallon fuel to cruise past the university on Friday nights and look at the girls."

 Paraphrase of my original source:

While the author was not handed the keys to a new BMW at age 16, he was also not part of the economic group that might never get new car. Instead of spoiling him, his parents supplemented his income just enough for him to be able to just stretch what he could afford and do.

Summary of my original:

The author is reflecting on his upbringing in regard to how he was not spoiled but his parents afforded him some monetary help to just stretch what was possible for him.