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     When you summarize, you use your own words to briefly report on or explain the ideas from a source such as a book or essay. You reproduce the contents of a source in a condensed from, focusing on the author's main ideas and reporting them accurately and objectively. Your opinions or ideas shouldn't be included in a summary.
 
 Essay Example:

Bernstein's Vision of America

     America has traditionally been a land of opportunity in which steady upward mobility was available to everyone. Workers who started at the bottom and worked hard could rise through the ranks to the top of a company. As long as such opportunities were available, Americans have been willing to tolerate wide gaps between rich and poor. However, new economic studies show that mobility is decreasing for the poor while increasing for the affluent and well educated. The American dream of working hard and moving up is no longer a reality for many Americans who find themselves trapped in a series of menial jobs with low pay and no chance for advancement. In the February 26, 1996 Business Week article, "Is American Becoming More of a class society?", Aaron Bernstein argues that the U.S. economy is becoming more stratified based on a worker's educational level.
        In the period up until the 1980s, the majority of workers, regardless of education or class, made similar economic gains. In the period from 1947 to 1973, the incomes of poor families rose faster than the incomes of rich families, and most economists agree that mobility was significantly greater in the 50s and 60s than it is today. Even as recently as the 70s, however, workers made similar gains regardless of educational level. For example, the ten-year earnings of high school dropouts increased 45%, while the earnings of high school graduates increased 42%, and the earning of college graduates increased 53%. However, even in the 70s, a growing disparity between the incomes of very poor and the very rich was evident. While the pay of men in the bottom1/5 feel behind inflation by 11%, the pay of men in the top 1/5 gained 29%. The same trend was evident in the income of poor families, which gained only 16% compared to 60% for rich families. In spite of this disparity between the top and bottom, the majority of families, 61%, were considered middle class.
        In the 80s, The American economy began to stratify, with mobility decreasing for workers with low skills and mobility increasing for educated workers. The earnings of less educated workers dropped behind that of college gradates, with the incomes of high school dropouts gaining 14%, the incomes of high school grads gaining 20%, and the incomes of college gaining 55%. In addition, the disparity between rich and poor that become apparent in the 70s escalated during the 80s. The wages of workers on the bottom lost 34% to inflation while the wages of men on the top increased 56% over the ten-year period.
       The same patterns of inequality continue into the early 1990s. Although most workers lost ground in the early 1990s, the wages of those at the top fell less than those at the bottom, continuing to widen the gap between the rich and poor. For example, wages for men in the top 1/5 fell only 1% and that of men with college degrees lost only 4%, whereas wages of high school dropouts fell 11%, and the wages of high school grads feel 4%. Perhaps most startling, the middle class had shrunk to 50% by 1992, and more than one-fourth  of the workforce has fallen below the poverty line. This figure doesn't include the 5% to 10% of the population that is permanently unemployed. As opportunities for workers at the bottom have decreased, the poor have begun to take on the characteristics of a permanent lower class. The need for emergency food aid has increased dramatically, and American workers at the bottom have less mobility than workers in many European countries.
       The outlook for the future is no different, and the author concludes that the continued division between the class threatens our democratic identity. Our democracy has been based on stable middle class and on the ideal of economic and social mobility for all. If the gap between rich and poor continues to widen, our democratic identity may suffer.

 Summary paragraph example:

Bernstein's Vision of America

     In the February 26, 1996 Business Week article, "Is American Becoming More of a class society?", Aaron Bernstein argues that the U.S. economy is becoming more stratified based on a worker's educational level. America has traditionally been a land of opportunity in which steady upward mobility was available to everyone. In the period up until the 1980s, all workers, regardless of education or class, made similar economic gains. However, new economic date shows that in the 80s, The American economy began to stratify, with mobility decreasing for workers with low skills and mobility increasing for educated workers. The same patterns of inequality continue into the early 1990s. Today, the salaries of workers with low skills are losing ground to inflation while the salaries of workers with college degrees are increasing. The mobility for low-income groups in the United States is now as low if not lower than in many European countries. Many working families in this country are being forced to rely on food aid to make ends meet. The outlook for the future is no different, and the author concludes that the continued division between the class threatens our democratic identity.

以下是我写的Summary。这是我的英语课作业，阅读 The Bats， 然后缩写这篇回忆录。要求是双行间隔，一页纸。我写了两稿，最后稿终于被我压缩进了一页纸。老师给我的评语是：Excellent .

Escape From Calcutta

       In Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's memoirs “From The Bats”, Divakaruni describes her mother's struggle to get from domestic violence. As Divakaruni is growing up, she starts to notice that her mother always cries. The sobs of her mother often wake her. One morning, Divakaruni notices a dark purple blotch on mother's face. She asks what it is, but her mother does not say anything. She only tells her to not wake her father. Divakaruni's father works very hard to support his family. Diviakaruni barely sees him. She only hears him shouting, dropping, and breaking things. She is terrified of him. When Divakaruni's mother gets more dark blotches on her face, she decides to take her daughter and leave her husband. They quickly pack their clothes into two bags and are careful not to make any noise. If Divakaruni's father wakes up, they would probably not be able to leave the house. Divakaruni is very lucky to get a seat next to the window. Everything Divakaruni sees is new to her. Her mother had grown up in the countryside, so she tells Divakaruni all about the flowers. After a while, Divakaruni's mother tells her that they are going to visit her grandfather, who lives in a village. She speaks hesitantly when she says they might be staying with grandfather for a while. Then she asks Divakaruni if she would miss her father. Even though Divakaruni does not understand the true meaning of what her mother is asking, she says definitely “No!” Her mind is already at the village: the place where she and her mother will live in peace with her grandfather, the buffalo, and the bamboo forest.

The Bats

That year mother cried a lot, nights. Or maybe she had always cried, and that was the first year I was old enough to notice. I would wake up in the hot Calcutta dark and the sound of her weeping would be all around me, pressing in, wave upon wave, until I could no longer tell where it was coming from. The first few times it happened, I would sit up in the narrow child's bed that she had recently taken to sharing with me and whisper her name. But that would make her pull me close and hold me tight against her shaking body, where the damp smell of talcum powder and sari starch would choke me until I couldn't bear it any longer and would start to struggle away. Which only made her cry more. So after some time I learned to lie rigid and unmoving under the bedsheet, plugging my fingers into my ears to block out her sobs. And if I closed my eyes very tight and held them that way long enough, little dots of light would appear against my eyelids and I could almost pretend I was among the stars.

One morning when she was getting me ready for school, braiding my hair into the slick, tight pigtail that I disliked because it always hung stiffly down my back, I noticed something funny about her face. Not the dark circles under her eyes. Those were always there. It was high up on her cheek, a yellow blotch with its edges turning purple. It looked like my knee did after I bumped into the chipped mahogany dresser next to our bed last month.

"What's that, Ma? Does it hurt?" I reached up, wanting to touch it, but she jerked away.

"Nothing. It's nothing. Now hurry up or you'll miss the bus. And don't make so much noise, or you'll wake your father."

Father always slept late in the mornings. Because he worked so hard at the Rashbihari Printing Press where he was a foreman, earning food and rent money for us, Mother had explained. Since she usually put me to bed before he came home, I didn't see him much. I heard him, though, shouts that shook the walls of my bedroom like they were paper, the sounds of falling dishes. Things fell a lot when Father was around, maybe because he was so large. His hands were especially big, with blackened, split nails and veins that stood up under the skin like blue snakes. I remembered their chemical smell and the hard feel of his fingers from when I was little and he used to pick me up suddenly and throw me all the way up to the ceiling, up and down, up and down, while Mother pulled at his arms, begging him to stop, and I screamed and screamed with terror until I had no breath left.

A couple of days later Mother had another mark on her face, even bigger and reddish-blue. It was on the side of her forehead and made her face look lopsided. This time when I asked her about it she didn't say anything, just turned the other way and stared at a spot on the wall where the plaster had cracked and started peeling in the shape of a drooping mouth. Then she asked me how I would like to visit my grandpa for a few days.

"Grandpa!" I knew about grandpas. Most of my friends in the third grade had them. They gave them presents on birthdays and took them to the big zoo in Alipore during vacations. "I didn't know I had a grandpa!"

I was so excited I forgot to keep my voice down and Mother quickly put a hand over my mouth.

"Shhh. It's a secret, just for you and me. Why don't we pack quickly, and I'll tell you more about him once we're on the train."

"A train!" This was surely a magic day, I thought, as I tried to picture what traveling on a train would be like.

We packed fast, stuffing a few saris and dresses into two bags Mother brought out from under the bed. They were made from the same rough, nubby jute as the shopping bag that Father used to bring home fresh fish from the bazaar, but from their stiffness I could tell they were new. I wondered when Mother bought them and how she'd paid for them, and then I wondered how she would buy our tickets. She never had much money, and whenever she asked for any, Father flew into one of his rages. But maybe she'd been saving up for this trip for a long time. As we packed, Mother kept stopping as though she was listening for something, but all I heard was Father's snores. We tiptoed around and spoke in whispers. It was so exciting that I didn't mind not having breakfast, or even having to leave all my toys behind.

I was entranced by the steamy smell of the train, the shriek of its whistle-loud without being scary-that announced when a tunnel was coming up, its comforting, joggly rhythm that soothed me into a half sleep. I was lucky enough to get a window seat, and from it I watched as the narrow, smoke-streaked apartment buildings of Calcutta, with crumpled washing hanging from identical boxlike balconies, gave way to little brick houses with yellow squash vines growing in the yard. Later there were fields and fields of green so bright that when I closed my eyes the color pulsed inside my lids, and ponds with clusters of tiny purple flowers floating on them. Mother, who had grown up in the country, told me they were water hyacinths, and as she watched them catch the sunlight, it seemed to me that the line of her mouth wavered and turned soft.

After a while she pulled me close and cupped my chin in her hand. From her face I could see she had something important to say, so I didn't squirm away as I usually would have. "My uncle-your grandpa-that we're going to see," she said, "lives way away in a village full of bamboo forests and big rivers with silver fish. His house is in the middle of a meadow where buffaloes and goats roam all day, and there's a well to drink water from."

"A real well!" I clapped my hands in delight. I'd only seen wells in picture books.

"Yes, with a little bucket on a rope, and if you like you can fill the bucket and carry it in." Then she added, a bit hesitantly, "We might be staying with him for a while."

Staying with a grandpa-uncle who had a well and buffaloes and goats and bamboo forests sounded lovely, and I told Mother so, with my best smile.

"Will you miss your father?" There was a strange look in her eyes.

"No," I said in a definite tone. Already, as I turned my head to look at a pair of long-tailed birds with red breasts, his loud-voiced presence was fading from my mind.