Maya Gomez Summary: “A Moral Market”

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AS A FIRST-YEAR college student, Maya Gomez began a multi-stage project by writing a summary of one of her sources, “A Moral Market” by Eric Posner. Your instructor may ask you to read “A Moral Market” so you can judge how effectively Gomez summarizes the article.

Gomez’s instructor gave the class four requirements:

For more about writing a summary, see Chapter 12 and Chapter 23.

  1. summarize the source’s main ideas and arguments, leaving out the details,

  2. present the source accurately and impartially,

  3. keep the summary brief (four to six sentences), and

  4. avoid quoting the source (except for occasional key words).

    (Other instructors may have different requirements.)

To compose the summary, Gomez used the Ways In activity “How do I write a summary?,” in the Guide to Writing later in this chapter.

As you read,

image Basic Features

An Informative Explanation

A Clear, Logical Organization

Smooth Integration of Sources

Appropriate Explanatory Strategies

Why do you think Gomez includes a quotation in the summary?

Why does Gomez give a play-by-play description of the source’s explanatory strategies?

In his article “A Moral Market,” published by Slate in 2014, law professor Eric Posner proposes a solution to the kidney shortage. He argues that, unlike the unpopular proposal to sell kidneys, his proposal for an “altruism exchange” would be politically acceptable because it is based on altruism, not the profit motive. He supports this argument by analyzing the public enthusiasm for the Norwood Act, which shows that people do not object to a kidney being exchanged for something of value; rather, they object to the donor profiting from such an exchange. Therefore, Posner proposes that a donor should be rewarded with an organ transplant (for someone other than the donor) or with a monetary donation to the donor’s preferred charity.