SUMMARY WRITING GUIDELINES

 

When a writer composes a text, he usually begins by writing an outline.  Your essays, for example, are written in this way (see "Essay Structure").   Summary writing is more or less the opposite process.  Your goal is to extract an "outline" from a given text.  The summary should briefly describe the main idea and all the major topics covered in a text.

 

How is a summary used?

A summary is used to provide a reader with a good idea of what a text is about without having to read the whole text.  Summaries are also useful study aids.  They allow a person to review a large number of texts in a short period of time.

 

Preparing to write a summary

1.  Survey the text you are about to read.  Make a mental note of the title, the author's name, the date when it was written, the publication in which it appeared, etc.  This sort of information gives you a context of understanding.

 

2.  Skim the text.  To skim means to find the controlling idea and the main ideas in a text quickly without reading the entire document.  One way to do this is to read the first and last paragraphs (which often contain the controlling idea), and the first sentence of each other paragraph (which often contain the main ideas).

 

3.  Scan the text for the most important details.  To scan means to search quickly for something specific.  For example, if you have a text on world population, you will probably want to scan the text for a few important statistics, such as: the present population of the world; the rate of population growth; etc.

 

4.  Read the entire text.  (of course, you should already a good idea of what the text will say; reading it is actually a process of confirmation and filling in details)

 

5.  Make an outline of the text.  It should look like this:

                                               

 

Note:  In some texts, each paragraph represents a main idea, so it is easy to make an outline.  Unfortunately, many texts, especially newspaper and magazine articles, are not organized in this way.  It is up to you to recognize where one main idea ends and a new one begins.

 

Writing the summary

1.  Write a first sentence which connects the title and author of a text with the controlling idea.  For example:  In his article "Provinces Hooked on Gambling", Bruce Little shows how provincial governments have become dependent on revenues from casinos and lotteries.

 

2.  The first sentence should be followed by the main ideas and supporting ideas in the same order that they appear in the text.  Remember that all sentences should be stated in YOUR OWN WORDS.  If you absolutely must use a sentence or phrase from the original text, make sure that it is put within quotation marks ("  ").  Also remember that you are just restating what is expressed in the text; you should NOT be adding any of your own opinions.

 

How long should the summary be?

It depends on the text, but generally your summaries should be kept under 100 words.