Summarising Two Sources: Whose Voice Survives?
For the topic of technology and daily life, you must write a 200-word Korean summary comparing two short sources. Source A is a newspaper article reporting that a city library replaced half its desks with charging stations and that visits by teenagers rose 30% in six months. Source B is a blog post by a librarian arguing that the rise is due to a new after-school programme, not the charging stations, and that the library 'lost its quiet'. You must not take sides, must attribute each claim, and must end with one sentence identifying what evidence would settle the disagreement. A classmate's draft reads: '도서관 이용자가 30% 늘었다. 그러나 도서관은 조용함을 잃었다.' Your teacher marks it down for unattributed claims and for presenting Source B's interpretation as fact.
1. Diagnose the classmate's two sentences and rewrite them with explicit attribution in Korean.
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Diagnosis: sentence 1 states the 30% rise as a bare fact, but it is Source A's reported figure and, crucially, Source A attributes the rise to the charging stations while Source B disputes the cause. The number and the causal claim are being merged. Sentence 2 presents 'lost its quiet' as fact, but it is Source B's evaluative judgement, not a measurement. Both sentences also erase who said what, which is the core requirement of a comparison summary.
Rewrite (Korean): '신문 기사(A)에 따르면 한 도시 도서관이 좌석 절반을 충전대로 바꾼 뒤 6개월 만에 청소년 방문이 30% 늘었다. 그러나 사서가 쓴 블로그 글(B)은 그 증가가 충전대 때문이 아니라 새 방과 후 프로그램 때문이라고 주장하며, 도서관이 조용함을 잃었다고 평가한다.' Note the split: A에 따르면 for the reported figure, B는 … 주장하며 / 평가한다 for the contested interpretation.
2. Write the closing sentence identifying what evidence would settle the dispute, and explain why it must be framed as a condition rather than a conclusion.
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Model closing (Korean): '두 주장을 가르려면, 충전대 설치 전후의 청소년 방문 시간대와 방과 후 프로그램 참여 기록을 함께 비교한 자료가 필요하다.'
Why a condition, not a conclusion: your task is to compare, not adjudicate, and you lack the data. A conclusion ('충전대 때문이다') would adopt one source's causal claim; a condition names the observation that would discriminate between the two explanations. The discriminating evidence must separate the two causes - time-of-day visit patterns (charging-station users vs programme attendees) or a comparison with a library that added chargers but no programme. Simply 'more research is needed' is too vague to count; the sentence must specify which records would distinguish the explanations.
3. The summary must be 200 words and neutral. Identify two word choices in Korean that would covertly take sides, and give neutral replacements.
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'겨우' or '불과' before the 30% figure ('불과 30%') minimises Source A's finding; neutral: '30% 늘었다' with no minimiser. Conversely '무려 30%' inflates it; both are evaluative.
'조용함을 잃었다' stated without attribution, or '도서관이 황폐해졌다' - the first smuggles Source B's evaluation in as fact, the second intensifies it beyond what B said. Neutral: 'B는 도서관이 조용함을 잃었다고 평가한다', keeping the evaluation inside the attribution.
A third candidate worth noting: '주장에 불과하다' ('merely a claim') delegitimises B; neutral is '주장한다' or '평가한다' without 불과하다. Neutrality in a comparison summary is achieved by consistent attribution verbs (보고한다 for A's reporting, 주장한다/평가한다 for B's interpretation) and by keeping every evaluative word inside a quotation or attribution frame.