Transcript How to Write Summaries

How to Write Summaries
JC Clapp, North Seattle Community College
1. Consider the Rhetorical Situation
• Who will be reading the
summary?
• Why are you writing it?
• How long should it be
to achieve your
purpose?
• Is the reader familiar
with the text you’re
summarizing?
2. Read the Text
• Determine the structure –
briefly outline the text to help
you understand how it all fits
together
• Identify the author’s purpose
(to help you distinguish
between more and less
important points)
• Identify the author’s primary
claim (or thesis)
3. Reread the Text
• Mark the author’s major
points or ideas
• Mark off the major sections
of the text and label them
• Mark the author’s
supporting examples and
evidence
• Underline any key ideas or
terms
• Write notes in the margins
4. Write the Bare-Bones
• On a sheet of paper, write
a one-or-two-sentence
summary of the author’s
major claim/thesis
• Write one-sentence
summaries of each major
section of the text
• You should now have a
good outline of the text
5. Draft your Summary
• Combine the thesis and
summary sentences of the
major ideas into complete
sentence/paragraph form.
• Disregard minor details and
only but the most important
supporting evidence that the
author uses.
6. Check and Adjust
• Compare your summary
against the original text to
be sure it’s accurate.
• Consider how long the
summary needs to be based
on the rhetorical situation,
and cut details as necessary
(or flesh out more) to meet
the space requirements.
7. Get Feedback
• Have somebody who
is unfamiliar with the
text read your
summary and give
you feedback. Is it
clear? If not, fix it.
8. Revise and Polish
• Introduce the title of the text, the
author, and the date in the first
sentence.
• Insert transitions to ensure
coherence.
• Avoid a series of short, choppy
sentences.
• Use strong verbs. (try to eliminate all uses
of the verb “to be” – is, are, was, were, am, be,
being, been)
• Check for grammatical correctness,
punctuation, and spelling.
Paraphrasing and Quoting
Summary’s little cousins . . .
Summarizing vs. Paraphrasing
• Paraphrasing is putting
the text into your own
words. The original and
the paraphrase are
about the same length.
• Summaries significantly
condense down the
length of the original.
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How to Paraphrase
1. Make sure you
understand the text
2. Don’t borrow words
or sentence structure
from the original
3. Put entirely into your
own words
Use a Quote when . . .
1. You can’t paraphrase and
do the original justice
2. You need the original to
lend authority and
credibility to your point
3. The original is especially
compelling or memorable
The Art of Quoting
•
Quotes must be exact repeats of what the
author said.
• ANY change to a quote must be indicated.
Brackets indicate you added something. Ellipsis
indicate you deleted something.
Examples:
Clapp reminds us that, “We [teachers and students]
are tired” (48).
“Learning to study well entails . . . reading,”
emphasizes Holt (374).
Framing your Quotes
• No drive-by quoting! All
quotes must be lead into and
out of with your own words
and ideas.
• Never assume your reader is
going to understand the
quote the way you do.
Explain all quotes.
Using PIE
Regardless of whether or not you
summarize, paraphrase, or quote, you
must embed your evidence into your
paragraph. Use PIE:
P (Point): The point your are making
I (Illustrate): Insert evidence/example to
illustrate the point you’re making
E (Explain): Explain how your illustration
supports your point